Colbert ‘Charlie Brown’ Joke Conjures Untested Copyright Theory

Stephen Colbert’s joke of having his band play “Charlie Brown” music in a mock effort to saddle CBS with copyright liability may not actually create any, but it incidentally evokes an area of the law with nebulous boundaries.During the last episode of The Late Show, Colbert mentioned Lee Mendelson Film Productions—which owns copyrights to music from the Peanuts comic strip,…