Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

I put this story in the humour category for two reasons, it deals with JibJab and some apparently really stupid lawyers (which are always fun to watch).

Seems Ludlow Music sued JibJab and AtomFilms and SpeedraNetworks and anyone they thought had any money even remotely involved in the popular "This Land" JibJab parody web movie. Why? Well they claimed to have the copyright to the Woody Guthrie song ""This Land is Your Land".

The results of the suit, details are not forthcoming from Ludlow music, but we can sort of infer what happened from subsequent events and statements from the defendants. The EFF got involved to defend JibJab. An attorney for the EFF, Fred Von Lohman said basically hey that copyright expired in 1973. His actual quote being "This song belongs to you and me!" The Ludlow company disputes the expiration, but the EFF has shown where Guthrie originally published the songsheet in 1945. In addition Von Lohman slowly explained to the Ludlow lawyers that "fair use" is allowed for parodies even OF copyrighted material (and the JibJab "This land will surely vote for me" just *might* fall into that category).
Seems all lawsuits were dropped, the suits from Ludlow against everybody they could find, and countersuits that may have potentially completely removed any dispute about Ludlows "copyrights"?

See the linked news.com article for more. Props again to the EFF.   JibJab beats copyright rap