Karlsruhe, Germany - The European Court of Justice may be asked to decide whether a Berlin library owns the copyright to an opera by composer Antonio Vivaldi, German judges said Thursday.

Vivaldi has been dead for 267 years and everything else which the Italian composed is free to perform without paying fees.

But the state-run Berlin Academy of Song says it owns the long- lost Vivaldi opera Motezuma.

The academy published several sheets of the music on its website after rediscovering the opera in its old-music archives in 2002.

Italian and German performers who staged the opera in 2005 are refusing to pay rights fees to the academy.

The case was argued in Germany's federal high court on Thursday. A verdict is expected Friday.

Judges said they expected to ask the European court in Luxembourg to review German legislation on the issue.

While some Vivaldi lovers have been outraged at the notion that a German organization owns his music, presiding judge Joachim Bornkamm said the point of the legislation was to reward anybody who tracked down lost work and brought it back to public renown.

In a lower court, the academy lost its case claiming that it was the original publisher of Motezuma.

Vivaldi personally conducted the orchestra when Motezuma premiered in Venice on November 14, 1733, in the Teatro Sant' Angelo, Venice.

The opera is about the tragic end of the true-life Aztec ruler Montezuma in 1520. (dpa)