Happy Birthday wins for plaintiffs in US Court

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Happy Birthday wins for plaintiffs in US Court

No royalities have to be paid

tangor

5:40 am on Sep 24, 2015 (gmt 0)

Good news: you can now sing Happy Birthday without fear of someone demanding you get your checkbook out.

A US judge has overturned a copyright claim to Happy Birthday, declaring the seminal number is not owned by a group that includes Warner/Chappell Music, which has been collecting royalties for the song's performances.

The ruling on Tuesday [PDF] clears the way for the use of Happy Birthday without a hefty royalties claim. Of course, someone else could come forward to claim they truly own the rights to the ditty, but that's extremely unlikely.

[theregister.co.uk...]

While not entirely similar, the above is very like the many Getty letters websites receive, even for images produced by the website itself! Sadly, there has been no ruling in that regard. Sigh.

lucy24

8:17 pm on Sep 24, 2015 (gmt 0)

What, exactly, is the Register's problem?

three women known as the Hill sisters

That would be, er, because they were sisters and their surname was Hill? (And who's the third? News to me that anyone besides Patty and Mildred was involved in the actual composition, not to be confused with later copyright claims.)

There's an interesting legal article (not a typo) about the song's history at
[scholarship.law.gwu.edu...]
(Don't know if that's the canonical link. I downloaded the PDF years ago and back-searched for the title.)