We Shall Overcome Foundation v. The Richmond Organization, Inc.

221 F. Supp. 3d 396, 120 U.S.P.Q. 2d (BNA) 1700, 2016 WL 6871427, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 160965
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. New York
DecidedNovember 21, 2016
Docket16cv2725(DLC)
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 221 F. Supp. 3d 396 (We Shall Overcome Foundation v. The Richmond Organization, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
We Shall Overcome Foundation v. The Richmond Organization, Inc., 221 F. Supp. 3d 396, 120 U.S.P.Q. 2d (BNA) 1700, 2016 WL 6871427, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 160965 (S.D.N.Y. 2016).

Opinion

CORRECTED OPINION AND ORDER

DENISE COTE, District Judge:

The defendants The Richmond Organization, Inc. (“TRO”) and its subsidiary and imprint Ludlow Music, Inc. (“Ludlow”) (collectively, the “Defendants”) possess two copyrights in the musical composition “We Shall Overcome” (the “Song”) registered with the Copyright Office in 1960 and 1963. The Plaintiffs We Shall Overcome Foundation (“WSOF”) and Butler Films, LLC (“Butler”) (collectively, the “Plaintiffs”) challenge through this putative class action the Defendants’ copyright in the Song. The Plaintiffs contend, inter alia, that the lyrics to the first verse of the Song are virtually indistinguishable from a song in the public domain.

The Defendants have brought a motion to dismiss at least that portion of the amended complaint that challenges their protectable copyright interest in the lyrics to the first verse of the Song, and to dismiss as well each of the Plaintiffs’ state law claims.1 The Defendants contend that [402]*402their possession of a copyright registration is prima facie evidence of the validity of then- copyright in the Song and that the Court should decide as a matter of law that the changes made to the lyrics in its first verse from the version in the public domain reflect sufficient originality to warrant a copyright in the derivative work. They assert that those changes include substituting We for I, Shall for Will, and Deep for Down. For the following reasons, the motion to dismiss is denied as to the claims under the Copyright Act. The motion to dismiss the state law claims is granted on the basis of preemption.

BACKGROUND

The following facts are derived from the complaint, together with its exhibits and documents integral to the complaint.

Origins of the Song

The Song is derivative of a song strongly associated with the Civil Rights movement in the United States and, according to the Library of Congress, “the most powerful song of the 20th Century.” The Song originated as an African-American spiritual. The first known printed reference to that spiritual, then called “We Will Overcome,” is in a February 1909 edition of the United Mine Workers Journal. In the 1940s, the spiritual was used as a protest song by striking tobacco workers in Charleston, South Carolina.

In 1945, American folk singer Pete Seeger (“Seeger”) and others founded People’s Songs, Inc. to “create, promote, and distribute songs of labor and the American people.” It published both the lyrics and music to the spiritual in the September 1948 edition of People’s Songs magazine. The authors are listed as the “FTA-CIO Workers Highlander Students.” The magazine notes that the song “was learned by Zilphia Horton of the Highlander Folk School, in Tennessee, from members of the CIO Food and Tobacco Workers Union.... It was first sung in Charleston, S.C., and one of the stanzas of the original hymn was ‘we will overcome.’ ”2 The lyrics of the composition, as published, read:

We will overcome
We will overcome
We will overcome some day
Oh down in my heart, I do believe
We will overcome some day

During the 1940s and 50s, the words of the hymn changed and new verses were added. As described by Seeger in a 1993 book, “[n]o one is certain who changed ‘will’ to ‘shall.’ It could have been me with my Harvard education. But Séptima Clarke, a Charleston schoolteacher ..., always preferred ‘shall.’ It sings better.” Seeger also discussed the origins of the Song in the liner notes of a 1998 Smithsonian Folkways phonograph record:

“The song was probably adapted from the 19th century hymn ‘I’ll Be All Right,’ .... In any case, Zilphia Horton of the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee heard Black tobacco workers singing it on a picket line in 1946. According to Pete, one of those workers, Lucille Simmons, changed the T to ‘we.’ ... Zilphia Horton added some verses and taught it to Pete in 1947 and Pete added other, less union-specific verses.... According to Pete, ‘This song undoubtedly has many meaning[s] to many people .... The very best verse was made up in Montgomery, Alabama, the city of the 1956 bus boycott: ‘We are [403]*403not afraid — today!’ .... Without this verse none of the other verses could come true.”

In 1959, Vanguard Records released a phonograph record on which the Robert DeCormier Chorale performed “We Shall Overcome.” Cherry Lane Music, Inc. registered a copyright for the sheet music for that record, including “We Shall Overcome.” The deposit copy of the sheet music includes the following lyrics:

We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome some day
Oh deep in my heart I do believe
We’ll overcome some day

The Summer 1960 volume of Seeger’s magazine, Sing Out! The Folk Song Magazine, published the lyrics, but not the music, of “We Shall Overcome” in the form claimed by the Defendants’ copyright. They were recited in a story authored by Irwin Silber.3 The lyrics were printed as:

We shall overcome,
We shall overcome,
We shall overcome some day;
Oh, deep in my heart,
I do believe,
We shall overcome some day.

In his article, “He Sings for Integration,” Silber described the folk singer Guy Carawan as leading audiences in this “old hymn of hope and determination.” Carawan was quoted as stating that “ We Shall Overcome’ is easily the most popular song of the integration struggle.”

Copyright Registrations

On October 27, 1960, Defendant Ludlow filed a copyright application for a musical composition entitled “We Shall Overcome.” The application, filed on a Form E, was for a previously unpublished derivative work.4 The application for registration listed Zilphia Horton, deceased, Frank Hamilton, and Guy Carawan as authors of “New words & music Arrangement.” In response to the instruction inquiring “[i]f a claim to copyright in any substantial part of this work was previously registered in unpublished form,” the application identified a work registered under the title “I’LL OVERCOME.” In response to the instruction that the applicant “give a brief, general statement of the nature of any substantial new matter in this version,” the application reported, “Melody has been changed. Harmonization wholly original. Verses 2, 3, 4 of lead sheet attached all original.” The copyright was registered as No. EU645288.

The deposit copy for the work covered under Reg. No. EU645288 contains five verses. The first and fifth verses both read:

We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome some day
Oh deep in my heart, I do believe
We shall overcome some day

On October 8, 1963, Ludlow filed another copyright application for “We Shall Overcome” as a derivative work.5

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221 F. Supp. 3d 396, 120 U.S.P.Q. 2d (BNA) 1700, 2016 WL 6871427, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 160965, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/we-shall-overcome-foundation-v-the-richmond-organization-inc-nysd-2016.