Book People Archive

"This land..." belongs to you and me

Some of you may have heard about the fuss over a piece of satirical
animation on the Web that has Bush and Kerry singing their own praises
and insulting each other, to the tune of Woody Guthrie's "This Land
is Your Land".  (You can see the piece at jibjab.com.)  I thought it
was quite funny, as did Woody's kids, according to an interview with
Arlo Guthrie on NPR a few weeks back.

Woody's publisher, Ludlow Music, had a different reaction, and wrote
Jobjab a cease-and-desist letter, claiming that the piece violated the
copyright on the song.

There is a copyright registered to the song, in 1956, which was renewed
in 1984 (in the name of Woody's kids, as it turns out).  But we know that
Woody originally wrote the song in 1940, and first recorded it in 1944.
The basic copyright to the song should have started when the work was
first published, or the copyright was registered, whichever came first.
(Apparently sound recordings and public performances don't start the clock
by themselves.)  Was there really a 16-year gap
between the time the song was written and the time it was first published?

It turns out there wasn't.  The Electronic Frontier Foundation has
turned up a mimeographed booklet that Woody was selling in New York in 1945,
which includes melody and words for 10 of his songs, including "This Land
is Your Land".   They've put the booklet online, and I'm happy to list it
today. The book also includes drawings and a typewritten introduction by the
author.  This isn't a professionally printed booklet, but that doesn't
matter for purposes of copyright law.  If you've offered it for sale
to the general public, as seems clearly indicated from the book's cover,
which includes a price, contact address, and copyright notice, that's
sufficient for publication as far as copyright is concerned.

I haven't been able to find any direct comment on the booklet from Ludlow,
but EFF's press release says that Ludlow claims that its 1956 copyright to the
song is still valid.  That's probably true, simply because the 1956 version
of the song is different from the version that appears in Guthrie's 1945 
booklet.  Thus, there would still be a valid copyright for parts of the
song that are not in earlier publications like the 1945 booklet.  But the
song as it was published in 1945 would still be in the public domain
(and thus open to freely being copied, performed, or used as source
material for satirical films like JibJab's.)

Guthrie varied the song a fair bit over time.  The original 1940 manuscript
had "God blessed America for me" instead of "This land was
made for you and me", as the song was originally responding to Irving
Berlin's "God Bless America".  Guthrie also wrote a "relief office" verse
that he didn't use in the 1945 booklet, and he also sometimes sang a verse
about a "no trespassing" or "private property" sign that's not in
this booklet either.   I think those verses were also not part
of the 1956 Ludlow publication.  There is, however, a 1972 copyright
registration for the lyrics of two additionak verses, which could well be
these two.  Ludlow also has copyright claims for piano accompaniments and
guitar arrangements dated 1958 and 1970, respectively.

I will be listing a copy of the "Ten Songs" book today on The Online Books
Page.  I'm afraid EFF's copy is rather rough, with some parts of pages
missing or unreadable, but it's significant enough that it's worth listing
even with its imperfections.  I did see a clean-looking transcript, and
some better (though partial) image scans, on a German site, but am not
listing that copy at the moment due to uncertainty about the book's
copyright in Germany.  If anyone knows of other US-based copies that
are more readable than the EFF PDF, let me know.

Thanks!

   John Mark Ockerbloom
   Editor, The Online Books Page
   http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/