Depp and Beck recount in their complaint that
“sometime in the 1960s Defendant met a federally incarcerated character pseudo-named “Slim Wilson” – who may have actually been named Willy or Willie Davis – who apparently shared many stories and poems from his life with Defendant. During one of their meetings in federal prison, Defendant recorded Mr. Wilson reciting the “Hobo Ben” toast.”
Jackson was featured in a Rolling Stone article and made the claim that Depp and Beck only contributed a couple original lines to the song. However, he later went further to claim that he has a claim to the toast since it was contained in his authorized recording of “Hobo Ben.” That legal claim is the focus of the complaint and is clearly novel since he does not claim to be the actual creator of the toast.
“Hobo Ben” included lines that appear in the lyrics: “I’m raggedy, I know, but I have no stink / God bless the lady that’ll buy me a drink” and “What that funky motherf**ker really needs, child, is a bath.” The song, “Sad Motherf**kin’ Parade,” also includes the line “you better try to keep you ass in this corner of shade/’cause if the Man come you make a sad motherf**kin’ parade.”
Jackson sent demand letters to the musicians claiming a copyright violation. Depp and Beck responded with the filing in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York for a declaratory judgment.
The complaint acknowledges the obvious overlap with the toast but insists that it still remains their own creative product.
Most importantly, it attacks the claim that Jackson would have a copyright right simply because he recorded Wilson and published the words. The plaintiffs acknowledge that there may be uncertainty on the origins of the particular words but there is absolute clarity on the lack of a basis for a copyright claim:
“What is clear about the origins and creation of the ‘Hobo Ben’ toast is that it was not created or written by Defendant. What is also clear is that Defendant owns no copyrights in the ‘Hobo Ben’ toast and, if any copyrights do exist in it, they were never assigned or otherwise transferred to Defendant.”
I am not a copyright lawyer but the complaint seemed fairly convincing on the dubious basis for such a claim. Indeed, the complaint raises questions over the actual creator of the toast:
“But even Mr. Wilson, whoever he may have been, was not the author of the “Hobo Ben” toast, as explained by Defendant in his book as follows: “Slim hoboed, as did his father, from whom he learned this toast” (GYA Book, p. 98) (emphasis added). Defendant also wrote about Mr. Wilson: ‘From his father he learned #19, ‘Hobo Ben,’ #32, ‘The Pimp,’ and many other toasts. We used to sit around, we used to have parties at the house with the company there and they used to go just backwards and forwards with them.’”
It would seem an extraordinary extension of copyright laws to cover lines taken from folklore. Depp and Beck argue that “In fact, as part of a “folklore” or “oral tradition” apparently passed down for generations as Defendant himself explained in his GYA Book, it is not clear at all that anyone owns copyrights to the words of the “Hobo Ben” toast.”
What is interesting is that the complaint does not deny that the lines may have been lifted from the toast: “While there may be elements of the SMP song that mirror the words of the “Hobo Ben” toast, the SMP song itself is an original work of authorship and creativity by Plaintiffs.”
Here is the complaint: Depp v. Jackson