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JibJab Sues for Fair Use of Right to Parody

Posted by timothy on from the dark-side-of-the-farce dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A few days ago, Slashdot mentioned that JibJab was threatened by a copyright lawsuit. Well, it looks like JibJab decided to sue first with the help of the EFF. Lots more info here." (Here's the Bloomberg News article.) Update: 07/31 20:43 GMT by T : Seth Finkelstein has posted the court info on his website.

4 of 273 comments (clear)

  1. The copyright isn't even valid. by laing · · Score: 5, Informative

    More info about this on EFF's site:

    http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/001779.php

  2. Permission to use already given ? by dackroyd · · Score: 5, Informative

    From wikipedia Woody Guthrie has already given his permission.

    "This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do."

    There is something wrong where the author of a work doesn't give a damn about people using his material but his descendants get to control it for almost a century after his death.

    --
    "Free software as in beer, copy protection as in racket" - Telsa Gwynne
    1. Re:Permission to use already given ? by kfg · · Score: 5, Informative

      A good many of Woody's songs were modifications of other songs. It's called "The Folk Process."

      Roll on Columbia and Ramblin' Round were both to the tune of Goodnight Irene by Huddie Ledbetter (that's Leadbelly to you and me).

      Woody was not a particular fan of the idea of "Intellectual Property" and violated it regularly and without compunction. All he really cared about was some sort of credit for what he himself had written. Folk music is the original "Open Source."

      This Land is Your Land he clearly intended by his own words to dedicate to the public domain.

      KFG

  3. Review: Definition of Parody & Link song lyric by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just as Michael Jackson's Beat It is to Weird Al's Eat It, the music is not changing but the words are. Yes, Al got permission but he was not required to. If you look up the legal definition of what a parody is you'll find: According to law.com parody is "the humorous use of an existing song, play, or writing which changes the words to give farcical and ironic meaning." Given that JibJab's lyrics (Read them for yourself) did not use the song in it's original state, and unless the definition of a parody has changed, Jibjab should be in the clear.