This Land and Fair Use

There is an article at Wired.com about lawsuits arising from the JibJab animation called, “This Land.” The estate of Woodie Guthrie threatened a lawsuit. JibJab preemtively filed their own suit. From Bibliofuture, I think this is going to be an open and shut case. Parodies have been looked at as protected speech in most cases and “This Land” falls right into that category.

August 5, 2004 by Bibliofuture Uncategorized 5

Daniel says:

August 6, 2004 at 1:28 am

How about our own parody?
Would anybody like to help craft copyright-oriented lyrics to “This Land” and see if we get sued as well? Here’s my stab at a first verse:

“This song is our song, it is not your song. We bought it fair square, so you can’t share.

“From the copyright office, to the Congressional hear-ings, this song, was meant to make us fees!”

Any takers for a 2nd round?

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Grumpy Librarian says:

August 6, 2004 at 2:22 am

Parody
I think this is going to be an open and shut case. Parodies have been looked at as protected speech in most cases and “This Land” falls right into that category.

I’m not sure it will be as open and closed as that.

I believe that the parody argument rests on the fact that the derivitive work is a parody of the original, i.e. that can reasonably be percieved to be commenting on or criticizing the original work.

I think that’s an open question for “This Land.” It seems more to be commenting on our politicians, not the Woody Guthry song.

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kmhess says:

August 6, 2004 at 2:24 am

Re:How about our own parody?
(The Guthrie Foundation verse)

This song is our song, it is not your song. The public domain, HA!, just say so long…

Limited term for copyrights, is so old fash-ioned, this song, is ours until 2037.

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mdoneil says:

August 6, 2004 at 6:52 am

Parody
Parody is of course an acceptable use, however each (contested) case must be decided on its merits, and how this will turn out is anyone’s guess. I think it is going to be a hard argument for parody use as the song itself is not the subject (think My Bologna by Weird Al) but it is used to create a comedic work, not as the subject of the work.

It also probably has Woody spinning in his grave in that it gives equal treatment to both sides. Woody was not by any strech of the imagination a Republican, in fact NPR says This land is your land was once a leftist anthem. The original lyrics show a bit more socialist slant than the truncated song with we are most familiar. Not that there is anything wrong with that, the man expressed his opinion in the medium with which he was most comfortable.

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Bibliofuture says:

August 6, 2004 at 7:24 pm

Private Property
Verse four of “This Land” from Guthrie’s original manuscript reads, As I went walking, I saw a sign there
And on that sign it said “Private Property”
But on the other side it didn’t say nothin’
That side was made for you and me !

I wonder what Guthrie would think about the holder of his copyright suing Jib Jab?

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