In a prior blawg post, I wrote about the then-recently filed case of Good Morning To You Productions Corp. v. Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., in which the issue was whether or not the song, Happy Birthday To You, is still protected by copyright. Specifically at issue were the lyrics to the song. As noted in my prior post, Good Morning To You Productions, which is working on a documentary film tentatively titled “Happy Birthday,” challenged the copyright now held by Warner/Chappell Music Inc., arguing that the song should be “dedicated to public use and in the public domain.”
After nearly two years of litigation, the court has ruled. U.S. District Judge George H. King determined the song’s original copyright, obtained by the Clayton F. Summy Co. from the song’s writers, only covered specific piano arrangements of the song and not its lyrics. The basic tune of the song, derived from another popular children’s song, “Good Morning to All,” has long been in the public domain and its status was not in dispute in the case.
The defendants in the case had argued that the lyrics to Happy Birthday to You were authored by Mildred and Patty Hill around the turn of last century and that the Hill sisters had held onto common law rights to the copyrights for several decades [note: common law copyright rights no longer exist under the new copyright law that is applicable to works first created after January 1, 1978 but did exist under the old 1909 Copyright Act]. The defendants then alleged that these common law rights were transferred to Summy Co., which published and registered them for a Federal copyright in 1935 (which, if true, would have meant that the copyrights could still exist today if the original 1935 registration was renewed after its first 28 year term ended in 1963).
The court, in a lengthy opinion, concluded that “[b]ecause Summy Co. never acquired the rights to the ‘Happy Birthday’ lyrics, defendants, as Summy Co.’s purported successors-in-interest, do not own a valid copyright in the Happy Birthday lyrics.” Further, the original authors of the lyrics never took any steps to prohibit others from using those lyrics, even as Happy Birthday to You became very popular and commercially valuable. Indeed, in 1934, some four decades after the alleged original date of composition of the melody to the song, the successors in interest to those rights finally asserted their rights to the melody but still made no copyright claim as to the lyrics. The court also said that the copyright registration itself (which only creates a presumption of the validity of the copyright) did not specifically state that the lyrics were the element being registered but, instead, it appeared that the registration was intended to cover the new piano arrangement of the song. In short, the court was not convinced that the lyrics ever were registered in 1935. The defendants claimed that this may have just have been a “mistake” in the registration and that the registration should have been afforded “the presumption of the validity of the registration for the entire work.” The court was not convinced.
In addition to seeking a declaration that the lyrics are in the public domain, the plaintiffs in the lawsuit also asked for monetary damages and restitution of more than $5 million in licensing fees it said that had been collected from thousands of people and groups who have paid to use the song over the years. The court has yet to rule on the damages issue.
So, the next time that you want to celebrate a friend’s or loved one’s birthday in public, feel free to sing Happy Birthday to You, original lyrics and all.
