The César Manrique Foundation is studying taking legal action against the Cabildo for the re-edition of the book "Lanzarote. Unpublished Architecture", which was carried out on the occasion of the centenary and despite having been expressly "unauthorized" by the FCM, as admitted by the acting president himself, Pedro San Ginés.
In a statement, San Ginés maintains that this book - which at the time they presented as a work by Manrique "and his collaborators" - was financed in its day by Fernando Higueras, and that the Foundation that bears his name is the one who "claims to hold" the rights and who granted them permission. However, the FCM responds that they are responsible for the copyright and intellectual property of that work, as custodians of the entire artistic legacy of César.
For the moment, the César Manrique Foundation has already sent a letter to the Cabildo warning that they would take legal action if it did not stop this publication, but the Island Corporation has decided to go ahead. "If the FCM takes such legal action, we will have no choice but to defend in court the legitimacy of the Cabildo to honor César with this second re-edition, a facsimile of the one published for the first time in 1974", San Ginés said in a statement, who until the new Corporation is constituted remains the acting president.
For its part, in response to the Cabildo, the FCM has placed the matter in the hands of its legal team to decide on the next steps to take. In addition, this is already the second time that the Foundation has had to issue a warning to the Island Corporation for not respecting the intellectual property of César's works.
The previous one was on the occasion of the Film Festival, for which a painting by Manrique was also used without authorization. In that case, after the FCM publicly denounced the plagiarism and also warned with legal actions, the Cabildo chose to withdraw the poster. Now, San Ginés has once again lashed out at the Foundation - stating that defending the rights of César's work is being in "a senseless war against Coalición Canaria" - and has made it clear that he is willing to take the Cabildo to court again over this issue.
Regarding the re-edition of this book, 2,000 copies have been printed and changes have been introduced in the original, as reported by the Cabildo at the time. In addition, as La Voz de Lanzarote has already published, two contracts were directly awarded for this project. One of them to Gonzalo Hernández Melguizo, for the "design, layout and supervision of the pre-printing" of the book for 12,863 euros, and the other for printing to Artes Gráficas Palermo, for 26,675 euros.
