Happy Birthday
Interesting article on Billboard.biz by Eriq Gardner on the song ‘Happy Birthday’ and a lawsuit filed declaring that the work belongs in the public domain and should not be copyright to Music Publisher Warner/Chappell Music.
This matter will take some time to go through the Courts, but it presents an interesting case over Copyright Control.“In the late 19th century, a schoolteacher named Patty Smith Hill and her sister Mildred Hill composed the first version of a tune that would become internationally famous. In fact, “Happy Birthday” has been cited by the Guinness Book of World Records as the most recognised song in the English language.””When the Hill sisters first composed the song in 1893, it was called “Good Morning to All.” Somewhere along the line the tune evolved into the version that is currently popular.
The song has traditionally been regarded as copyrighted because the lyrics appeared in a songbook in 1924 and a piano arrangement was published in 1935. As such, it would neatly fit into changes in copyright law”
The lawsuit claims that “it has “irrefutable documentary evidence, some dating back to 1893, [which] shows that the copyright to ‘Happy Birthday,’ if there ever was a valid copyright to any part of the song, expired no later than 1921”.
This matter will take some time to go through the Courts, but it presents an interesting case over Copyright Control. See the whole article here
