Some folks would have felt honored to have been considered worthy of “ripping” by an act that caught on like wildfire.
Some take umbrage and sue.
Usually the suing doesn’t take this long, however. Isn’t there a statute of limitations even for copyright actions?
I’m not a copyright lawyer, or any type of lawyer, but my understanding from reading about this is that if they prevail they can only get a share of future royalties and back royalties starting three years before they filed the suit.
Supreme Court just overturned the Ninth Circus on this sort of thing. The estate of one of the screenwriters of Raging Bull sued MGM over copyright infringement. MGM sited ‘laches’ as the reason the suit had no merit (laches is the legal term that describes ‘waiting too long to sue’.
SCOTUS basically said that lawsuits are expensive, and waiting to see what happened in the market was appropriate, even if it took a while.
To win, now, you have to show there was no infringement. Waiting too long is out.