Stephen Colbert signed off The Late Show with a final act of gleeful defiance: using the iconic Peanuts theme music without permission, fully aware it would cost CBS money. "I hope this doesn't cost CBS any money!" he quipped before the music played. Narrator voice: It absolutely will.
It's a small gesture, but it says something about Colbert's relationship with corporate television after a decade in the late-night trenches. He spent years navigating network standards, advertisers, and the increasingly constrained world of broadcast TV. So using his finale to stick it to the intellectual property regime? That's the most Colbert thing imaginable.
The Peanuts music catalog is notoriously well-protected. The Charles Schulz estate and the various corporate entities that control the IP don't mess around. Unauthorized usage typically results in immediate cease-and-desist letters and licensing fees that can run into six figures, depending on the context. CBS will almost certainly get a bill.
But here's the thing: Colbert is rich, CBS is richer, and the cost of licensing the music is a rounding error in the budget of a late-night show that ran for over a decade. What Colbert bought with that unauthorized usage wasn't just a nostalgic music cue—it was a statement about the absurdity of IP law and how corporations control even the most culturally ubiquitous works.
Peanuts is American cultural DNA at this point. The music evokes instant emotional recognition for millions of people. But you can't use it without paying, because Charles Schulz's heirs and corporate partners have every legal right to control how it's used. That's how copyright works, and there are good arguments for protecting creators' legacies. But there are also moments when IP law feels less like protection and more like rent-seeking on the cultural commons.
Colbert using the music anyway—on broadcast television, in front of millions of viewers—was a way of saying: some things should belong to everyone. Or at least, some things are worth the cost of defying the lawyers.
Will this change anything about how intellectual property is managed in entertainment? Of course not. CBS will write a check, the Peanuts rights holders will cash it, and the system will continue exactly as before. But it was a fun bit of subversion while it lasted.
In Hollywood, nobody knows anything—except that Stephen Colbert clearly decided the best way to end his late-night run was by giving the finger to IP law and making CBS foot the bill. Respect.
