Law Humor

Don Henley Sues Candidate to Stop Song Parodies

By Kevin Underhill

Again we learn the lesson that suing somebody who's saying something you don't like is guaranteed to get them more publicity (often now called the "Streisand Effect").   This time the teacher is Don Henley, a founding member of The Eagles, who is suing GOP Senate candidate Charles DeVore for writing new lyrics to a couple of his songs.  (The videos for these new versions were available on YouTube for a while but have been taken down because of the pending copyright claim.)

Henley filed suit last Friday in federal court, saying that DeVore had used his music without permission in two songs: "After the Hope of November is Gone," taken from "The Boys of Summer" and obviously referring to Barack Obama; and a new one about DeVore's opponent, Sen. Barbara Boxer, entitled "All She Wants to Do is Tax."

Henley (and his co-author, Mike Campbell) have probably given DeVore the high ground on this one, since the latter at least appears to have a sense of humor about things.  That's not a comment on the quality of the parodies, which are generally reported to be horrible, but at least he is making an effort.  Henley's spokesman, on the other hand, stated, "The infringers have vowed to continue exploiting this and other copyrighted works, as it suits them, to further their own ambitions and agenda. It was necessary to file a lawsuit to stop them."  Which is not funny at all.  DeVore responded on his website by saying he was filing a First Amendment counter-claim, and was "upping the ante on Mr. Henley's liberal goon tactics" by posting the lyrics of his new parody song.

It's good that DeVore has a sense of humor, both for general reasons and because his chances of unseating Boxer are approximately zero.

Link: CNN

Full post as published by Lowering the Bar on April 21, 2009 (boomark / email).