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Why was Nino Rota’s score for The Godfather removed from Academy Award consideration?

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Francis Ford Coppola, with a beard, sits on a camera dolly surrounded by crew and actors on the set of The Godfather: Part II, with storefronts in the background. — Francis Ford Coppola American filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola won the Oscar for best director for *The Godfather: Part II* (1974).

Nino Rota’s score for The Godfather was initially nominated for an Academy Award, but it was subsequently removed from consideration after it was discovered that portions of the music had been previously composed for the 1958 Italian film Fortunella.1