Defamer
Our bosses would never let this fly on our expense report, otherwise we would hire a lawyer right now and take Warner Music to court for hogging the rights to the world's most popular song — "Happy Birthday to You" — when we're told it doesn't even own them. At least that's the argument of Robert Brauneis, a law professor at George Washington University whose close read of the song's copyright history suggests anyone with enough money, free time or a sadistic streak could liberate "Happy Birthday" for public well-wishers around the world:
It is also a revenue-generating juggernaut, producing more than $2-million a year in fees for Warner Music and the offspring of Mildred and Patty Hill, the sisters who composed it in 1893. Chain restaurants have come up with their own birthday ditties so that they wouldn't have to pay performance royalties for the song, and the ASCAP licensing authority told the Girl Scouts of America that they would have to pay licensing fees because their campers sang the song. ...
The professor's exhaustive 69-page research study is available online, along with dozens of supporting documents. According to his research, while the Hill sisters may have had a legal claim to the original version of the song — a kindergarten ditty called "Good Morning to You" — there is no evidence that they composed the version that uses birthday lyrics, and therefore the claim filed in 1935 by a music publisher (later bought by Warner) is invalid. And since the company that filed that claim didn't have the proper rights, the extension that was later filed (which keeps the copyright in force until 2030) is also invalid.We can think of no better use for the humanitarian millions lining the pockets of George Soros and the like than to step in for the sake of every Girl Scout, TGI Friday's server or film producer ensnared in the Hill Family's lethal four-line, seven-word trap. Look at it this way: Even Paramount balked at paying for "Happy Birthday"'s clearance in The Godfather, Part II, substituting "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow" instead (the same thing happened 20 years later to the producers of Todd Haynes's Safe). Such extralegal festivity terrorism must end; class action starts now. Who's in?
- The tangled story of Happy Birthday [Globe and Mail via MCN]
Comments
The party's oh-ver...
I'm suddenly making the connection with the "Put Another Candle on Your Birthday Cake" song from Sheriff John.
I'm in, let's stage a protest by singing Happy Birthday all the way to the Supreme Court.
I seem to remember reading somewhere that the copyright to "Good Morning to You" was based on a pre-existing instrumental tune that was either never copyrighted or which has since fallen into public domain. If this is the case, wouldn't any instrumental versions of it and "Happy Birthday" be considered PD?
I'd like to imagine Mildred and Patty Hill as two old crones sitting around their parlor stinkin' drunk, per usual, when, Mildred, the bolder of the two old bags, turns to Patty and says 'That old nursery school song? Let's make up some crappy lyrics and sing it to ourselves at our next birthday'.
And thus a family fortune was born...
I wish the prof had done this to Monopoly instead.
How Parker Brothers managed to convince the Supreme Court to uphold their copyright on a game that had been played in New England for decades before Monopoly was created has been baffling for years
Yeah well, nothing will fall into public domain (the way things are SUPPOSED to) while Disney keeps Mickey's bloated corpse propped up in the proverbial rocking chair.
@mwynn13: I loved that tune. Being raised in LA, I loved the Sheriff John show. I can still sing it.
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