
Lawsuit Filed To Prove Happy Birthday Is In The Public Domain - chaostheory
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130613/11165823451/filmmaker-finally-aims-to-get-court-to-admit-that-happy-birthday-is-public-domain.shtml
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robomartin
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.

~~~
sramsay
"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.

~~~
robomartin
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.

~~~
sramsay
It's a joke. I would rather have a root canal than have the wait staff of a
chain restaurant come around and sing me one of their obnoxious birthday
ditties.

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codex
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_
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.

~~~
dnautics
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.

~~~
yebyen
I always cringe when I see this "treble damages" because it must be a person
who doesn't understand English very well. Tri_p_le is spelled with a _P_ after
all, isn't it?

Then I googled it and found out that is actually the name of the law. It means
triple damages. It's from British English and the phrase is still correct in
American English.

 _facepalm_

~~~
koli
Double/treble

Duplicate/triplicate

Duplex/triplex

Duple/triple?

'Triple' is the weird root-isolation here.

~~~
toyg
The original Latin verb from which numerals are built is "plicare", which is
why in italian you have basically the same word as the original Latin:
multiplicare (multiply), duplicare (to double), triplicare (to triple) etc.

I guess the softer "b" versions come from some French influence.

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

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f2PCWYAZQc](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f2PCWYAZQc)

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bjhoops1
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.

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

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

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mgkimsal
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. :)

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treerock
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.

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ubernostrum
The article is blogspam. You want this one:

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

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.

