RADIO

A federal appeals court in New York has altered a lower court’s ruling and granted a playwright permission to create a musical based on “Amos ‘n’ Andy” radio programs aired before 1948. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, however, upheld a portion of the lower court’s ruling that allowed CBS Inc. to retain copyrights of the show’s scripts written after 1948. Playwright Stephen Silverman “will now have ample latitude to proceed with his musical,” the court stated. Silverman had filed suit against CBS (which aired “Amos ‘n’ Andy” on radio and TV from 1928 to 1966) after the network denied him a license to create a Broadway musical based on the popular show. CBS said the material infringed its copyright and trademarks, including the characters, as well as phrases such as “ ‘Scuse me for protruding,” “ ‘Splain dat,” and “Holy Mackral.”