Happy Birthday Lawyers Target “We Shall Overcome”

The same lawyers who targeted the “Happy Birthday” song, bringing it into the public domain, are now targeting the phrase “We Shall Overcome.” The famous freedom anthem should not be subject to copyright protections, say attorneys Mark C. Rifkin and Randall Scott Newman. They filed a lawsuit in a federal court in Manhattan against The Richmond Organization and its label, Ludlow Music Inc., which filed for copyrights in 1960 and 1963, and have collected millions of dollars in fees over the decades. Popularized by Pete Seeger, the melody was used prominently used throughout the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and was chanted by thousands at the funeral for Martin Luther King, Jr.