Thank you!
It's the most recognized song in the English language, a simple tune consisting of four lines that's serenaded countless children and adults.
"Happy Birthday to You" is the subject of a new lawsuit against the publishing section of Warner Music Group, which claims copyright ownership of the song.
A complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan Thursday claims that "Happy Birthday to You" has been in the public domain since at least 1921. The suit is brought by a group of people who paid a royalty to use "Happy Birthday to You" in the past four years.
The song allegedly generates at least $2 million a year in licensing fees for Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., which claims to own the exclusive copyright to the tune through a company it acquired , Summy-Birchard.
A spokesperson for Warner Music did not return a call requesting comment.
The plaintiff is a producer who is directing a documentary about the song and had to pay a $1,500 licensing fee to use it in the film, according to the roducer's Manhattan lawyers, Randall Newman and Mark Rifkin, who declined to identify the producer by name. The plaintiff's company is called Good Morning to You Productions, which was incorporated in March.
A song simple enough for a toddler to sing has a complicated copyright history, described in a 2010 paper by Robert Brauneis, an intellectual property scholar at George Washington University Law School.
The claim that "Happy Birthday to You" is still under copyright has "three principal weaknesses," he wrote.
"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."
The melody of "Happy Birthday to You" was adopted from another song, "Good Morning to All," composed by Mildred Jane Hill in the late 19th century. (It's not clear if the melody was original or if she borrowed it from other songs.) Her sister, Patty, wrote the words, and asked Mildred to write a melody ''to express those words and emotions and ideas fitted to the limited ability of a young child," according to Mr. Brauneis.
By the early 1900s, "Happy Birthday to You" "began appearing in a variety of songbooks as an alternative text for the "Good Morning to All" melody,'' writes Mr. Brauneis. Before then, the nation lacked a standard birthday song. The modern children's birthday party with cakes and schoolmates had only recently become a popular American custom.
Summy-Birchard "can only claim ownership it can trace its title back to if that the author or authors of the song,'' writes Mr. Brauneis. "Yet it appeared that the only possible authors to whom it can trac its title are Mildred and Patty Hill themselves, and there is not enough evidence that either of them wrote the song.
