Litigation update: Don Henley; James Brown; Coldplay

A couple of updates from stories we've covered recently:

• We previously reported singer Don Henley's lawsuit against Charles DeVore, the California Republican running for Barbara Boxer's U.S. Senate seat, over the use of his songs "Boys of Summer" and "All She Wants to Do is Dance" in a campaign ad. Here's DeVore's filed response, in which he thumbs his nose at the plaintiff not by asking the court to dismiss the case but rather to "strip away some clutter from the complaint." Devore says Henley can't make a false endorsement claim without any allegation of the use of his image or voice and tries to set up a showdown between his fair use/free speech rights and Henley's copyright claim.
• A South Carolina judge has approved a settlement over James Brown's estate after a few years of litigation. A lot of media outlets are reporting that nearly half of the money goes to a charitable trust, though as we pointed out previously, there's a complaint pending in Illinois court from a charity run by a former Brown associate who accused the singer of rape, so we're not quite sure the years of litigation are quite over yet.
• We've covered the legal claims involving Coldplay's hit song, "Viva La Vida." First, Joe Satriani's lawsuit. Then, the former Cat Stevens' claim. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Coldplay singer Chris Martin calls the lawsuits "really inspiring" as he crafts more catchy tunes. What can't copyright do?