A federal judge on Friday struck down the copyright for part of the civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome,” saying that the song’s adaptation from an older work — including changing “will” to “shall” — was not original enough to qualify for protection.

The case is the latest one to cancel the copyright of a time-honored song that many people may well assume was available for anyone to sing, after “Happy Birthday to You” was declared part of the public domain last year. A similar suit challenging Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” is pending.

The decision on “We Shall Overcome,” by Judge Denise L. Cote of United States District Court in Manhattan, concerns the first verse of the song, which contains the lyrics “We shall overcome / We shall overcome some day” and “Oh deep in my heart I do believe / We shall overcome some day.”

Those lines, repeated in the fifth verse, have been associated with civil rights and peaceful protest for decades, and resurfaced most recently after the white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, Va.