Lawsuit Filed To Prove Happy Birthday Is In The Public Domain

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130613/11165823451/filmmaker-finally-aims-to-get-court-to-admit-that-happy-birthday-is-public-domain.shtml

by chaostheory • 13 years ago

262 30 13 years ago

techdirt.com

codex• 13 years ago

The copyrights were filed with the U.S. copyright office at some point. If the copyright should be found invalid, does that obligate the former copyright holder to return licensing fees? I somehow doubt it. The licensor acted in good faith; if you now own a worthless license, that is not their fault. Indeed, Warner themselves probably bought the copyrights from someone else (they were founded in 1958) believing them valid. Willful fraud, on the other hand, is another matter.

corin_2• 13 years ago

Shouldn't the question of willful vs. accidental fraud be the decider in whether penalties are faced, rather than just returning incorrectly claimed fees?

The same way that if someone accidentally pays too little tax they'll be told to pay the difference and will do that, whereas if they lie to try and pay less taxes then not only do they have to pay the difference, they'll also get slapped with fines and/or prison time.

Otherwise the model is there to claim fees you don't have a right to, wait until you get stopped, put your hands up and say "oops we didn't realise" and keep all that money.

edit: Should point out I am giving an opinion on the logic, not the law.

nostromo• 13 years ago

If you accidentally pay too little tax, you will still get fined (at least in the US).

dnautics• 13 years ago

If I'm not mistaken, accidental fraud just penalizes for the value of the fraud, and may wind up being limited to restitution for those who had WB come for collections AND come forward about it. Willful fraud come with treble damages. But I am not a lawyer.

interstitial• 13 years ago

There are a lot of copyright and IP blogs out there. I'd wait to hear some legal opinions from them. Still sounds like a fun project!

ubernostrum2• 13 years ago

From reading the suit, it appears that what they're arguing is that the total fees collected by Warner/Chappell would, if Warner/Chappell had no right to collect it based on copyright, become damages the class-action plainttiffs would then recover back from Warner/Chappell. There may also be provisions in the California Unfair Competition act which would allow the court to order repayment.

barbs• 13 years ago

Until this happens, one could use something like this :P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f2PCWYAZQc

mmanfrin• 13 years ago

Title is unclear -- I thought this meant that it was now out of copyright, not that someone has field suit.

astrodust• 13 years ago

It is out of copyright by any reasonable definition, but the copyright office has so far failed to recognize this.

robomartin2• 13 years ago

The neatest outcome would be that restaurants will (should?) stop singing their alternative non-infringing songs to those celebratimg birthdays.

On a possibly related note, here's something I've been wondering about. A few years ago phrases like "I love LA" or "I love New York" became "I heart <whatever>". Is this also some kind of a copyright issue? It sounds so ridiculous that I couldn't imagine radio and tv stations using using it if not by force.

icebraining• 13 years ago

"I ♥ NY" was part of a campaign to attract tourism, and became a pop-culture symbol; it's not an issue of copyright. In fact, using the heart is more likely to get them in trouble, since it's trademarked by NY and they go against imitators.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Love_New_York

inthewind• 13 years ago

Related and just as daft:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cafe_Hon#.22Hon.22_as_a_tradema...

mrcoles• 13 years ago

I worried a little when I started selling this shirt: http://mrcoles.com/media/img/cool-harold-i-ny-ny-fractal-shi... but I figured it was either different enough or could be applied as a parody? (Or probably just no one cares, since it's not popular enough…)

It also seems like a lot of amateur t-shirt sites have tons of custom i <3 shirts.

sramsay2• 13 years ago

"The neatest outcome would be that restaurants will . . . stop singing . . . songs."

IANAL, but I believe that particular practice is prohibited under the auspices of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which, while not legaly binding as such, forms the linguistic basis of legal constructs within binding covenants and treaties to which the United States is a signatory.

The fact that this practice continues should surely be pursued with the utmost priority by all those concerned with probity and justice among civilized peoples.

cwarrior• 13 years ago

You must be fun at parties.

robomartin2• 13 years ago

Yikes! I literally have no clue what you are saying. Not sure how we connect alternative happy-birthday songs at restaurants with human rights.

Are you joking? Maybe this is just sarcasm bordering on being a little dark, but it would be funny. This is where seeing someone's face uttering the words would convey a lot more information.

treerock• 13 years ago

The article isn't clear on the current copyright status for the song. It was first published in 1918. Copyright for songs published prior to 1978 runs out after 95 years. Therefore it should fall into the public domain this year, regardless of any lawsuit.

300bps• 13 years ago

The lawsuit is seeking to divest Warner of the hundreds of millions of dollars they've been paid for something they didn't have the rights to.

There are all kinds of entities that have a claim to own a copyright. Some of them are true, some if them are false. If you aggressively enforce a copyright that ultimately turns out to not be yours to enforce, there should be stiff penalties over and above the fees you collected.

When the reconstituted SCO was suing everyone over Linux licenses over bogus copyright claims, they were unfortunately let off pretty easily.

ubernostrum2• 13 years ago

The article is blogspam. You want this one:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130613/11165823451/filmma...

Which also has the full text of the filing. Basically they argue that the melody dates to at least 1893, first copyrighted in 1896, and that this copyright expired in 1921. The lyrics were first mentioned in a 1901 newspaper article. No attempt to copyright them is known until 1912, through a songbook in which they would not have been eligible for copyright as a new song. Although a series of copyrights were also filed in the 1930s, they were all for specific new arrangements of the melody, never for the melody itself or for the lyrics, since the melody and lyrics already existed, and the melody had already been copyrighted once and expired.

If their historical research is correct, then neither the melody nor the lyrics could possibly be under copyright in the present day, and most likely could not have been under copyright even when some of the earliest lawsuits for infringement were filed; the latest the melody could have been under copyright was 1921, and the latest the lyrics could have been under copyright (from the original filing of the 1912 songbook) was 1930.

mgkimsal• 13 years ago

It would seem the lyrics would be hard to enforce copyright on, because you change the lyrics for each person you sing to. Happy Birthday Dear (your name here), etc.

Yes, I'm being overly technical. :)

bjhoops1• 13 years ago

It blew my mind when I heard that "Happy Birthday" was copyrighted. So glad to find out that it's bullshit. Make those lousy, greedy bastards pay for being epic trolls.

Lawsuit Filed To Prove Happy Birthday Is In The Public Domain

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