Peanuts Music Owner Settles With Buckle-Down and U.S. Interior Department Over Unlicensed Use
The company that owns the publishing rights to Vince Guaraldi's Peanuts music scores announced settlements on Aug. 17 with a collectibles manufacturer and the U.S. Department of the Interior over unlicensed use of the familiar jazz tunes, closing out two cases from a copyright litigation blitz filed in May Billboard.
Lee Mendelson Film Productions, or LMFP, reached a $27,500 settlement with Buckle-Down Inc., a collectibles manufacturer that featured the 'Linus and Lucy' theme in Instagram and TikTok ads for Peanuts-branded products. The company had not purchased what the industry calls synch licenses — permissions required to pair a piece of music with visual content, whether that is a TV ad, a social media post, or a film clip. Buckle-Down also signed a permanent injunction on July 31 barring any future unlicensed use of the Peanuts catalog.
A separate $20,000 settlement covers the U.S. Department of the Interior, which used 'O Tannenbaum' from A Charlie Brown Christmas in a digital holiday card posted to X, Facebook, and Instagram without a synch license. According to Bloomberg Law, links to that holiday card — which also appeared on TikTok and YouTube — were removed weeks later Boston 25 News. The Interior Department agreement, entered on Aug. 3, sets up a takedown procedure: LMFP can now alert the Department of Justice's intellectual property division about any future infringement by the federal government.
LMFP launched its broader litigation blitz in May, suing three companies and the Interior Department over unlicensed social media uses of Guaraldi's jazz tracks — music most listeners know from the animated Peanuts television specials that have aired since the 1960s The New York Times. CBS News reported that the suits concerned songs including 'Christmas Time Is Here' and 'Linus and Lucy' CBS News.
Two additional companies — pajama maker BedHead and collectibles marketer Beast Kingdom — entered into negotiated licensing agreements with LMFP, though neither had been sued and the financial details were not made public.
Marc Jacobson served as lead attorney for LMFP across the enforcement actions. The company has pursued Peanuts music copyright claims before: in 2019, it filed claims against Dolly Parton's Dollywood theme park over Charlie Brown song use.
The enforcement reach even extended to late-night television. Stephen Colbert played 'Linus and Lucy' in the final episode of The Late Show, and CBS subsequently signed a licensing deal with LMFP over the segment, with proceeds donated to the charity World Central Kitchen.
For anyone posting Peanuts music alongside video content, the message from LMFP's legal campaign is straightforward: the jazz tracks that soundtracked childhood holiday specials carry publishing rights that their owner is prepared to enforce, whether the user is a collectibles company, a pajama brand, or a federal agency.
