JibJab (creator of this Political Parody) is being threatened with a copyright lawsuit by the rights holders of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land”. They’ve already contacted EFF and there is an ongoing debate about whether the flash animation is protected parody or infringing satire. Full information is located at CNN and Slashdot.
The original copyright notice attached to This Land is Your Land reads as follows:
“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.”
Unfortunately, since Congress enabled copyrights to be extended “indefinitely”, whoever ended up with Guthrie’s copyrights extended them and then sold them to a record company.
Well, if that’s really a rights statement, they will probably be OK. Although, I suspect in the end they will wind up paying some royalties to the rights owner.
If it’s real, it’s what Woody Guthrie put in a statement when he realeased it, perhaps on the original album/single itself…but Copyright #154085 probabably reads like any normal copyright. It expresses Guthrie’s intent, but apparently its not the intent of the current copyright holders.
So jibjab will probably end up paying royalties.