Daily Pulse

Court Fixes Country Joe

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld a decision by a lower court that Country Joe McDonald‘s anti-war anthem “Fixin’ To Die Rag” does not infringe upon the copyright of an earlier song.

Babette Ory, daughter of songwriter Kid Ory, claimed McDonald’s song was similar to her father’s jazz standard “Muskrat Ramble,” but the appellate judges said there was too long of a delay in bringing the lawsuit, according to the Los Angeles Daily Journal.

McDonald was awarded attorney fees.

“No one ever complained to me that they thought a riff of my song might be too similar to a part of Kid Ory’s ‘Muskrat Ramble’ – until last summer, more than three decades after my song became internationally famous – for its lyrics,” McDonald said in a statement.

“Babette Ory sued me in September 2001, claiming my song infringed her father’s ‘Muskrat Ramble’ tune. According to her, her father asked her in the early 1970s to ‘nail me’ for the ‘profane lyrics’ of my song.”

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