“Happy Birthday” was copyrighted until 2015
For decades, a company collected around $2 million a year in licensing fees for the world’s most-sung song. Then a court found the claim was never valid.
The melody started life as “Good Morning to All”, written by the Kentucky schoolteacher Mildred Hill and her sister Patty, a pioneer of kindergarten education, and published in 1893 in a book of songs for children. At some point people started singing “Happy birthday to you” to the same tune.
The copyright
A copyright for the birthday lyrics was registered in 1935. Through a chain of acquisitions it ended up with Warner/Chappell Music, which bought the company holding it in 1988. Warner/Chappell charged for public performances in films, TV and adverts, earning an estimated $2 million a year. That is why many films had characters sing something else, or cut away.
The case
In 2013 the filmmaker Jennifer Nelson, who was making a documentary about the song, was charged $1,500 to use it. Her company and others sued. In September 2015, Judge George H. King ruled that Warner/Chappell had never had a valid copyright to the lyrics. The 1935 registration covered only specific piano arrangements.
Warner/Chappell settled in 2016 for $14 million, which went back to people who had paid licence fees. In the United States the song is now treated as being in the public domain, and in the EU its copyright expired at the end of 2016.
Bring it up
“Films used to avoid showing people singing ‘Happy Birthday’ because it cost money in licensing fees, until 2015.”
Follow the thread
- In contrastThe mixtape we sent to the stars One piece of music sent freely into space for eternity; another fenced off by copyright for decades.
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