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Happy Birthday to You: Difference between revisions
Updated with new copyright status of "Happy Birthday"
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Looney Toons (talk | contribs) (Updated with new copyright status of "Happy Birthday") |
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''We wish it was our birthday, so we could party too!''
''Happy happy birthday, may all your dreams come true!''
''We wish it was our birthday, so we could party too!|''[[The Emperor's
{{quote|'''Isaac:''' Someone holds the copyright to "Happy Birthday
'''Dan:''' The representatives of Patty and Mildred Hill.
'''Isaac:''' ...Took two people to write that song?|''[[Sports Night]]'' episode 1x04, "Intellectual Property"}}
It may well be an old standard, but up until the middle-late 2010s the song "Happy Birthday to You" was not in the public domain. (The copyright expired in the European Union on January 1, 2017. In the United States, a federal court ruled in 2016 that the song is and had been in the public domain for decades, contrary to claims by [[w:Warner/Chappell Music|Warner/Chappell Music]].<ref>Ironically, filmmaker Jennifer Nelson was doing a documentary on "Happy Birthday" and had paid US$1500 to Warner/Chappell to secure the rights to actually use the song in her film. Then her research for the film turned up several bogus/dubious links in the chain of ownership Warner/Chappell claimed gave them copyright to the song, along with legal experts who believed the song was public domain. She sued for her money back in 2013, and in September 2015 federal judge George H. King ruled that Warner/Chappell could not prove that it had ''ever'' held the copyright to the song; at the final settlement in June 2016, Warner/Chappell ended up paying out US$14 million to those it had charged for licenses over the years, and the song was definitely ruled as being in the public domain. Prior to this, Warner/Chappell had been raking in approximately US$2 million a year on "Happy Birthday" licenses.</ref> Oh, and it expired in 1985 in Canada.)
As a result, when a birthday is being celebrated on television or in the movies, it's fairly rare for those involved to actually sing "Happy Birthday to You." "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow" is often substituted (British shows may use "A Fine Old English Gentleman" instead), unlike in the real world, where singing anything ''other'' than "Happy Birthday To You" is almost unheard of (except when the singers are the waitstaff of certain chain restaurants, for exactly the same reason). Given the events cited above, this will no doubt change -- in fact, it has ''already'' changed for many of those chain restaurants -- but for now nearly every work you'll encounter will be using an alternative or [[The Jimmy Hart Version]].
The fact that a little ditty sung thousands of times a day around the world, and which only contains five words (not counting the person's name), is subject to copyright laws is serious [[Snark Bait]]. How they even keep track of which movies that aren't huge blockbusters even have it? The fact that you can be sued for realistically portraying a North American birthday party is mind-boggling. This case of copyright laws gone too far is often subject to [[Lampshade Hanging]].▼
▲The fact that a little ditty sung thousands of times a day around the world, and which only contains five words (not counting the person's name),
▲Incidentally, while the lyrics to "Happy Birthday to You" are still under copyright, the melody is ''not''. It was [[To the Tune Of|borrowed from an older song]], "Good Morning to All." So, instrumental or foreign-language versions are exempt from this rule.
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] ==
* ''[[Space Runaway Ideon]]'' second movie had children singing it...right after the [[Kill'Em All]] slaughterfest.
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