LA Times: All the ‘Happy Birthday’ song copyright claims are invalid, federal judge rules
None of the companies that have collected royalties on the “Happy Birthday” song for the past 80 years held a valid copyright claim to one of the most popular songs in history, a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled on Tuesday.
In a stunning reversal of decades of copyright claims, the judge ruled that Warner/Chappell never had the right to charge for the use of the “Happy Birthday To You” song. Warner had been enforcing a copyright since 1988, when it bought Birch Tree Group, the successor to Clayton F. Summy Co., which claimed the original disputed copyright.
This isn’t an insignificant ruling to Warner/Chappell that has been collecting about $2 million a year in royalties for “Happy Birthday.” The story on the copyright of this song is complicated, but before detailing that, want to back up a moment to the US Constitution. Specifically, Article 1, Section 8, clause 8, the Copyright Clause
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
Balancing the general need for progress of the nation with the exclusive right of creators to their own work(s). On the one hand outlawing the theft of intellectual property and on the other, not permitting an individual person to lock up forever a creation for use by others as others see fit. Implicit is the notion that inventors and artists are due just compensation for their work(s) for some period of time. The open question was the time Limit for the protection of the creator and his/her creation. (Licensing and exclusive assignments to use a creation were known back then.)
Now back to “Happy Birthday.” The ditty or melody was written some time in the latter part of the 19th century. Officially claimed to be a joint work by a KY school teacher and her musician sister, Patty Smith Hill and Mildred J. Hill, respectively. The sisters included it in their 1893 publication Song Stories for the Kindergarten. Except the title was Good-Morning To All and the lyrics were:
Good-morning to you,
Good-morning to you,
Good-morning dear children,
Good-morning to all.
That publication date of 1893 sets the beginning of the time period for which the song could be under copyright. Whatever the law was then, the court accepted what existed for works published between 1909 and 1921. That would have been 28 years from initial publication with a 28 year extension if renewed in the last year of the initial copyright period. Another Hill sister (Jessica) did file for the extension in 1921; thus, the melody and “Good-Morning To You” lyrics became public domain in 1949.
So, how could copyright claims to “Happy Birthday” have been enforced for all these decades? Why has it taken all this time for a court to determine that no valid copyright ever existed? From the court order, it appears that it was never thoroughly questioned before.
Who penned the derivative lyrics to that become known as Happy Birthday To You? Nobody knows. The first published reference to it was in 1901 and the first known publication of the lyrics was in 1911 without credit. Some decades later, Patty Hill thought that she and her sister might have written the lyrics, but they never filed for copyright protection, and they were knowledgeable about copyrighting their work and collecting royalties from it. In several disputes with their publisher and a Broadway show, they only asserted their rights as to the melody and Good-Morning To All lyrics. Nor did anyone else ever file a copyright for Happy Birthday
In light of the forgoing, Defendants’ Motion is DENIED and Plaintiffs’ Motion is GRANTED as set forth above. Because Summy Co never acquired the rights to the Happy Birthday lyrics, Defendants, as Summy Co.’s purported sucessors-in-interest, do not own a valid copyright in the Happy Birthday lyrics.
IT IS SO ORDERED
September _ 2015GEORGE H. KING
Chief United States District Judge
Did any one person(s) write the Happy Birthday lyrics without claiming them or were they developed by many over some period of time and no one person(s) could claim them as their own? That’s unknown. Could any such person have copyrighted the lyrics? Probably not. Or at least not without getting permission from the Hill sisters.
To Kill A Mockingbird will become public domain in 2055. Unless, Congress acts before then to further lengthen the “limited Times” for the corporate person.