It’s probably the most recognised song in the English language, sung and enjoyed by millions the world over on a daily basis. But ‘Happy Birthday To You’, a simple four-line song to sung to commemorate a person’s birthday, is actually under copyright.
At least, that’s what Warner subsidiary Warner/Chappell Music Inc have been telling the thousands of people they’ve collected more than $5 million in licensing fees from.
But a new lawsuit filed in New York City is seeking to challenge those claims, and is seeking damages and restitution on behalf of all of those they say Warner has ripped off.
According to the New York Times, the plaintiff is a producer who is directing a documentary about the song and who decided to sue the record label after Warner/Chappell told him he had to pay a $1,500 licensing fee to use the song in the film.
The plaintiff’s company is called Good Morning to You Productions, and they’ve argued in the lawsuit filed overnight that the song should be “dedicated to public use and in the public domain”.
“More than 120 years after the melody to which the simple lyrics of Happy Birthday to You is set was first published, defendant Warner/Chappell boldly, but wrongfully and unlawfully, insists that it owns the copyright to Happy Birthday to You,” the lawsuit states.
The suit asks the court to count thousands of people and groups who’ve paid Warner/Chappell Music licensing fees as part of a class action and to make the song free to use.
At stake a millions of dollars in collected royalties, based around Warner/Chappell’s claim to the exclusive copyright based on a piano arrangement of the song published in 1935 that is still current. But the lawsuit claims that copyright does not extend to the song’s melody or lyrics and that Warner/Chappell have been incorrectly claiming ownership of the song all these years.
Good Morning To You Productions plan to argue in court that evidence dating back to 1893 will prove that the actual song’s copyright actually expired in 1921. It also says that four previous copyrights to the melody of the similar-sounding Good Morning To All, filed in 1893, 1896, 1899 and 1907, have expired or been forfeited.
The melody of ‘Happy Birthday To You’ was adopted from ‘Good Morning to All’, composed by Mildred Jane Hill in the late 19th century.
Despite the simlisitic nature of the song, it actually has an incredibly convoluted copyright history. Best described in a 2010 paper by Robert Brauneis, an intellectual property scholar at George Washington University Law School, Brauneis says that Warner/Chappell’s claim that the song is still under copyright has a number of weaknesses.
“Most significantly, there is a good argument that copyright in the song has never been renewed. Under applicable law, the original term of copyright in the song ended in 1963. If no renewal application was timely filed, the song would have entered the public domain at that time.”
