JibJab Wins - 'This Land' is Public Domain

The Importance of writes "JibJab, creators of the hilarious parody of Woody Guthrie's 'This Land is Your Land' featuring Pres. Bush and Sen. Kerry, were first threatened with a lawsuit and then, with the help of EFF, went to court first in a pre-emptive strike. Well, EFF discovered that the song has actually been in the public domain since 1973 because it was first published in a songbook [PDF] in 1945 and the copyright was never renewed. The case has now been settled. Here are some addtional links."

Comments

If it's been PD since 1973...

[Col. Klink (retired)]

What happens to people who paid royalties since then. Can they sue to get their fees back, or are they SOL?

Re:If it's been PD since 1973...

[XaProf]

What happens to people who paid royalties since then. Can they sue to get their fees back, or are they SOL?

Just offhand, as a random law student (I know, I know, IANAL...yet...), they might be able to get some money back through something like unjust enrichment -- on the grounds that they didn't actually get anything when they paid their money. Who knows, maybe a claim of fraud might work too. The problem with that is that unjust enrichment is usually considered an equitable principle, and that means that whoever they paid their money to could argue laches, which is basically the equitable version of a statute of limitations; people who paid money back in the 80's might still be screwed.

But good luck to whoever sues, since that way we'll finally get a court decision. Litigation's way too expensive these days, and that's impairing the development of the law as a whole.

WRONG!

[kajoob]

Parodies are protected speech, satire is not, that's why there was a lawsuit.

I don't know where on God's green earth you got that from, but you couldn't be more wrong. Both parody and satire are protected forms of speech. I don't have the cases in front of me, but the New York Times v. Sullivan case, the Hustler v. Fallwell case, et al, bare this out. In fact, when the satire is aimed at a public official, there is a much higher standard that is used in finding whether or not the work was defamatory in nature ("actual malice").

On a side note, there is a unique case coming up through the Texas courts involving something called "Libel by fiction" (ie - "If what i said is fiction, it's can't be a truth I'm asserted, therefore 'wrong'").

For the non-legal types, here is a good CNN article that pretty much somes it up in plain english. Note that the finding of the lower courts in Texas is not the law is the vast majority of jurisdictions, so let's hope that Texas gets this one right at their Supreme Court level.