Posted on 08/05/2004 8:37:32 AM PDT by elfman2
NEW YORK -- The creators of a popular Internet cartoon that satirizes U.S. President George W. Bush and his Democratic challenger John Kerry are being sued by the copyright holder of Woody Guthrie's classic folk song This Land is Your Land for using the tune without proper authorization.
Ludlow Music asked Jib Jab Media (at jibjab.com) to remove its parody and present an accounting of all incomes derived from the cartoon, complaining it has caused substantial harm to the value of Guthrie's song. Acting on behalf of Jib Jab, the Electronic Freedom Frontier responded that use of the music is protected by the fair use doctrine of U.S. copyright laws.
The cartoon features a cut-and-paste Bush and Kerry trading sing-song insults while dancing to a version of Guthrie's tune. "I'm a Texas tiger, you're a liberal wiener," sings Bush, sitting atop a horse while lassoing Kerry in a hot dog costume. "You have more waffles than a house of pancakes. You offer flip-flops, I offer tax breaks. This land will surely vote for me."
Kerry responds: "You can't say nuclear, that really scares me. Sometimes a brain can come in quite handy," while giving Bush a brain transplant. He continues, "but it's not going to help you, because I won three purple hearts!"
The cartoon mimics the end of Dr. Strangelove in a shot of Bush riding a flying missile while yelping, "It's true that I kick ass!" It also features a sad-faced Indian in ceremonial headdress bemoaning that, "This land was my land," as the desert landscape behind him fills up with icons of American commerce.
The lawsuit is only the latest twist in a roller-coaster month of extremes for Gregg and Evan Spiridellis, who are the sole owners and creators of Jib Jab. Since posting the cartoon on July 8, the brothers have become media darlings. The publicity spike caused millions of people to download the cartoon and prompted Jib Jab's servers to crash repeatedly. The cartoon is now hosted by Atomfilms.com.,
In a recent radio interview, Woody Guthrie's son Arlo said he enjoyed the cartoon and even referred friends and relatives to the site. "I think my dad would have absolutely loved the humour in it," he said
But Weird Al is pretty good about getting permission. He got into trouble with his parady of Ganster's Paradise. Apparently he got the record label's permission but Coolio didn't give his OK.
On the other hand, Woody Guthrie himself apparently took the melody from a previous song. Also, Guthrie's copyright statements explicitly allow for others to sing and alter the song (probably not including selling records of it, but that isn't what JibJab is doing).
Your link hints at the main reason for the ruling.
the Ninth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that The Cat NOT in the Hat!, a book by "Dr. Juice" that recounted the O.J. Simpson trial in the style of The Cat in the Hat, violated the Seuss estate's copyright
The song writer assumed room temperature over 100 years ago. The checks are written to some company that bought the copyright from the songwriters sister.
The melody dates back about one hundred fifty years or more. No one knows who first put the words to the melody but it was first published in 1935. The copyright would have expired long ago, however, extensions of the law now provide protection to 2030.
The essence of this is people are required to pay royalties to a company that purchased a copyright for a song which was probably in the public domain to begin with.
I think you'll be hearing from a certain whiny Canadian's lawyers.
That's why it's time to put limits on copyrights. We wouldn't have a national anthem if present copyright laws existed in 1814.
"The song has gotten more play in the last couple of weeks than in the last 20 years, and the copyrighter complains"
Maybe that's why they are suing, to generate more publicity.
Quote: Fair use...now go away Guthrie, you socialist
I think Woody was the socialist but not the son Arlo. I saw a doc on Arlo several years ago and he was kinda cool. Had some liberal views of course but I think he is a capitalist.
He talked about the making of Alices Restraurant a cool movie
Pathetic and small.
This is a HYSTERICAL parody.
Dan
Don't you think?
CC
excellent, cant wait,
This land is your land
This land is my land
From California
to the New York islands
from the redwood forests
to the gulf stream waters
But this song will
generate attorney's fees
irritatin' aint it?
Working on it. Tough meter because it requires holdin a sylable here and there. But anyone who knows the original won't have trouble. Blowing in the wind was easy because it is written like a poem!
May finish today. Busy as heck at work.
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