‘Charlie Brown Christmas’ Song Owner Hits US With Copyright Suit

The entertainment company behind the Peanuts animated television series accused the Interior Department of using a song from “A Charlie Brown Christmas” in social media posts without permission.

Lee Mendelson Film Productions Inc., which owns the iconic “O Tannenbaum” composition, said in a complaint filed Wednesday that the department issued a “digital greeting card” just before Christmas last year. Links to the card posted to X, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram were removed weeks later, but the card remains available online, Mendelson Film told the US Court of Federal Claims.

The lawsuit faces an uphill battle against a likely government claim of sovereign immunity. The US Supreme Court in 2020 held that Congress exceeded its authority in a 1990 law attempting to make the government liable for copyright claims.

The ruling in a case involving footage of the pirate Blackbeard’s ship suggested there may be a path to abrogating immunity if Congress passed a less rigid and more “tailored statute.” After the justices shot down his argument that the 14th Amendment’s due process clause authorized the law, the filmmaker in that case tried to pivot to the argument that usage was an illegal government seizure under the takings clause. The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit said the filmmaker asserted that argument far too late.

Mendelson Film was founded by Peanuts executive producer Lee Mendelson—a longtime associate of Charles Schultz, who created Peanuts and its famous Charlie Brown and Snoopy characters—in 1963, according to the complaint. It said the Interior Department knowingly used the 1965 song in its digital card without permission.

The Interior Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Reitler Kailas & Rosenblatt LLP and Law Offices of Marc Jacobson PLLC represent Mendelson Film.

The case is Lee Mendelson Film Prods. Inc. v. United States, Fed. Cl., No. 1:26-cv-00749, complaint filed 5/20/26.