We do not keep in mind the Snoopy storyline the place Charlie Brown and co. find yourself in a authorized copyright battle, however that is precisely what’s taking place in the mean time. Lee Mendelson Movie Productions (the proprietor of “sure mental property” associated to the Peanuts IP) has issued a authorized criticism towards writer GameMill, accusing the latter of copyright infringement in Snoopy & the Nice Thriller Membership’s rating.
Okay, that is rather a lot to digest, and there is each probability you’ve got by no means heard of Snoopy & the Nice Thriller Membership, so let’s break it down. GameMill revealed the puzzle journey recreation on the Swap eShop final yr to comparatively little fanfare. Seven months after launch, it appears the Peanuts proprietor has seen some acquainted tunes within the recreation’s rating, and what are you aware, these tunes weren’t licensed.
Within the criticism (dropped at our consideration on X by @tech_gaming), Lee Mendelson Movie Productions offers a breakdown of a number of songs within the ‘Nice Thriller Membership’ soundtrack, pointing to similarities between them and the unique Vince Guaraldi rating. This, it claims, is proof that GameMill “created music considerably just like (and thus infringing upon) the Guaraldi Compositions with out authorization.”
The studio has even pulled in musicologist Dr. Ethan Lustig to “present an preliminary evaluation of the musicological similarities between the Guaraldi Compositions and the music within the GameMill Sport,” that are listed all through the doc.
The comparisons pair Guaraldi’s ‘Linus and Lucy’ and ‘Skating’ (with which any A Charlie Brown Christmas followers will probably be instantly acquainted) with an entire host of the sport’s tracks, together with ‘Success’, ‘City Theme’ and ‘Schoolhouse Theme’. Lustig factors to numerous “musicological similarities” between the unique rating and the 2025 soundtrack, noting the “particular rhythmic (and metric) instantiation”, “equivalent be aware occasions (similar pitch and rhythm)”, and different comparisons that are introduced as proof of copyright infringement.
And for these questioning, sure, the criticism states that GameMill did license the rights to the Peanuts characters for the sport, although it “didn’t license the rights to the Guaraldi Compositions from Plaintiff”.
Lee Mendelson Movie Productions is requesting damages “to be decided at trial” for the copyright infringements, which, the criticism states, are presently estimated to exceed $300,000.
This demand for jury trial was submitted final week on twentieth Might 2026 alongside lawsuits directed on the Federal Authorities, Heritage Auctions and belt buckle model Buckle-Down for comparable musical copyright infringement. We now have reached out to GameMill for a touch upon the criticism and will probably be conserving an eye fixed out for developments within the coming months.
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