This Land is My Land, biatch

The political flash movie, making the email/blog rounds recently, has stirred up a wee bit of acrimony...
Wired News: Sue You: This Song Is Our Song:

In the wake of their short's popularity, which began soon after its July 9 Web release and has been punctuated by appearances and mentions on almost every major U.S. news show, the brothers found themselves in a legal skirmish with Ludlow Music, which, Ludlow attorney Paul LiCalsi said, owns the copyright to Guthrie's famous tune.


Ludlow Music is a unit of music publisher The Richmond Organization. JibJab Media, the proper name of the Spiridellises' company, never got permission to use Guthrie's song in This Land, and Ludlow Music is telling them to pull down the short.


About a week ago, the brothers were served with a cease-and-desist order on behalf of Ludlow Music, demanding they remove This Land from their website. LiCalsi said Ludlow has not filed a lawsuit yet against JibJab and hopes to resolve the case without taking that step.

and from Mr. Guthrie, himself, this comment...

And what would Guthrie, who died in 1967, think of JibJab's use of his song? If a message reportedly written at the bottom of one of his songbook pages in the 1930s is any indication, it's possible he wouldn't mind.

According to various Internet sources, including the website of the Museum of Musical Instruments in Santa Cruz, California, Guthrie allegedly wrote, "This song is copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do."