This Land was made…
It has to be a little bit embarassing to file a copyright infringement lawsuit, only to find out that you don’t own the copyright.
In early August, Ludlow, which claimed to own the copyright for the folk tune, threatened to sue JibJab, alleging copyright infringement. JibJab used the tune to the song and rewrote the lyrics in a cartoon to mock the presidential candidates. It refused to take down the cartoon and pre-emptively asked a judge to declare that it had a right to use the song as satire without having to get the permission of the owner.But in a bizarre twist, JibJab’s lawyers discovered that anyone may record their own version of the song—because the copyright on the words and music have expired, they said.
What’s nice about this case, in my opinion, is that what at first seemed like the usual copyright-holder versus satirist case seems to have evolved into a situation where both sides did more than was expected to help the other out. In the case of Ludlow, they could just as easily have declared themselves ready to take this to a higher court – Disney and other copyright holders have done so in the past. And in the case of JibJab, the public domain nature of the song means that they don’t have to give Ludlow any considerations – but they’ve listened to Ludlow state that it cares about promoting the legacy of Woody Guthrie, and they’ve agreed to help with that mission.
If anything, I fell that this case proves that the movement of works into the public domain isn’t nearly the disaster scenario Disney has been painting for the past few decades. While some could argue that now people are free to do anything with Woody Guthrie’s music – even things that Woody, himself, would never have approved of – it isn’t an instant opening of the floodgates to defamation and destruction of the artist’s legacy, and is even an opportunity to expand upon that legacy and broaden its reach.
At least, that’s my take.