ஹேப்பி பர்த்டேவுக்கு காசு ! ஏகே47 இலவசம் !! : அப்துல்

You’ve probably sung it yourself hundreds of times – but if you want to do so on television, in a movie or on stage, you’ll need to pay Warner Music Group for the privilege. Happy Birthday to You is believed to have been netting the company $2 million a year in fees.

Now, though, a New York company that’s making a documentary about the song has filed a class action lawsuit with the aim of making it free for all. After being told that unauthorized use would cost $150,000, Good Morning To You Productions Corp paid a $1,500 licensing fee in March – but is now trying to get it back.

Sing it in public at your peril (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Happy Birthday to You has been described as the most famous song in the English language, but has surprisingly unclear origins: the root of the current lawsuit. The song was first published in 1893 as Good Morning to All, and was apparently written by sisters Patty and Mildred Hill. The better-known lyrics – which may or may not have been written by the sisters – emerged soon after.

A set of ‘Happy Birthday’ lyrics was published in 1924, and a piano arrangement in 1935; and, because works published after 1923 carry 95 years’ protection, Warner unit Warner/Chappell (which bought the copyright in 1998) has been able to pursue licensing fees. Under EU law, copyright will expire in the next few years, as it lasts for the lifetime of the author plus 70 years; in the US, as things stand, it’ll apply until 2030 (95 years after the 1935 piano arrangement).

Chellenging this has been something of a historical detective story. The film-makers claim that they have irrefutable evidence that the song was, in fact, in circulation as early as 1901, and that an Indiana school filed for copyright in 1912. If Warner owns the rights to anything, they say, it’s only the specific piano arrangement published in 1935.

“More than 120 years after the melody to which the simple lyrics of Happy Birthday to You is set were first published, defendant Warner/Chappell boldly, but wrongfully, insists that it owns the copyright to Happy Birthday to You, and with that copyright the exclusive right to authorize the song’s reproduction, distribution, and public performances pursuant to federal law,” reads the suit.

“Defendant Warner/Chappell either has silenced those wishing to record or perform Happy Birthday to You or has extracted millions of dollars in licensing fees from those unwilling or unable to challenge its ownership claims.”

The film-makers are asking for the song to be declared in the public domain – and for the return of the licensing fees that Warner’s claimed over the years.

Robert Brauneis, professor of law at the George Washington University, has taken an interest in the song’s copyright for years – predicting in 2008 that a legal challenge was unlikely, as the cost would be prohibitive. A class action lawsuit changes all that.

“If the plaintiffs are successful, the lawsuit could provide a model for how to challenge copyright in a song or other copyrighted work,” he says. “The success of the class action form may be particularly important, since individual users of a work typically do not have enough at stake to mount a challenge.”

Recently, the rights for both Sherlock Holmes and Zorro have also come under dispute. Here, the disagreement centers on whether the copyright ‘clock’ for a fictional character is reset to zero with further publications based on that character. Most of the Sherlock Holmes stories, for example, were published before 1923; does this mean that the character is out of copyright, or does the subsequent publication of a few more stories mean that the character gets 95 years’ protection?

As for Happy Birthday to You, there’s certainly no other song that’s performed quite so widely and whose copyright remains in such doubt. All the same, says Brauneis, a decision in favor of the plaintiffs could provide a precedent.

“Copyright in the vast majority of songs and other copyrighted works is sound,” he says. “Yet there likely are a number of other songs in which copyright is dubious, either because the chain of title back to the asserted author is faulty, or because the author or copyright owners did not comply with formalities required under earlier copyright law. So we might see a number of other challenges spring up if this one is successful.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2013/06/14/class-action-suit-aims-to-strip-warner-of-happy-birthday-copyright/