7/13/2011 – Nashville, Tennessee, known as music city, is the stage for a lawsuit centering around one of the best loved hymns of all time. And it’s a family fued.
Albert Brumley wrote and composed the well known hymn ‘I’ll Fly Away’ eight decades ago on a cotton field in Oklahoma. Little did he know that the song would be so widely sung and provide comfort to Christians the world over. But Brumley also likely had no idea that his family would be fueding over the millions of dollars in royalties the song has earned (a reported $1.4 million in royalities between 2004 and 2009).
Federal courts will provide clarification on copyright issues that have been widely fought over in the age of digital theft and piracy. One of the complications of this case is that Albert Brumley set up a company to administer his copyrights and his son, Bob Brumley, owns that company. It will be up to the courts to decide if the rest of the family deserves a piece of the action. Who else sees the irony in a financial battle over a song that reminds us that this life is only temporary and that Heaven and God’s New Earth are our real home?