![]() ![]() Have been written by someone else, the common law copyrights in the lyrics were lost due Plaintiffs challenge nearly every aspect of this narrative. To Summy Co., which published and registered them for a federal copyright in 1935. That the Hill sisters authored the lyrics to Happy Birthday around the turn of the lastĬentury, held onto the common law rights for several decades, and then transferred them The Partiesĭisagree only about the status of the Happy Birthday lyrics. ![]() Is critical in this case because both Parties agree that the Happy Birthday melody wasīorrowed from Good Morning and entered the public domain a long time ago. The distinction between the music and the lyrics as copyrightable elements This was (sort of) okay at the time, due to the mix of common law copyright and federal copyright laws (it wasn’t until the 1976 Act that the US - mostly - tossed out common law copyright). The court first notes the distinction between the melody (which was first created sometime around 1893) and the lyrics which likely came about a decade or so later, but the copyright on Happy Birthday wasn’t filed until 1935. If you’ve followed the case for any amount of time, you’d know that it shows what a complete mess copyright law can be and this ruling is no exception in driving home that point. Conceivably, if the Copyright Office gets its way that might mean you’d still need to tell the Copyright Office every time you intended to use the work (this is ridiculous, but we’ll discuss that below). It just said that Warner/Chappell does not have a valid copyright on it - which technically means that the song is an orphan work. One thing is important though: it did not declare the song to be in the public domain. But it still determined, through other means, that Warner/Chappell’s copyright claim is a load of bunk. Warner tried to tap dance around this, and believe it or not, the judge actually rejected the evidence as conclusive. This is a case we’ve been following for some time - actually since before the lawsuit was filed (in 2013) back to some research in 2008 showing that Happy Birthday was almost certainly in the public domain - and that music publishing giant Warner Chappell was likely fraudulently making somewhere around $2 million a year claiming royalties on the song.Ī couple months ago, the plaintiffs dropped something of a bombshell in the case, with more evidence that the song was definitively in the public domain. And we thought the ridiculous monkey selfie story would be the big copyright story of the week, and yet not even 24 hours later, Judge George King in the central district of California ruled that Warner Chappell “does not have a valid copyright” in the song Happy Birthday. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |