Happy birthday song lyrics3/31/2024 ![]() ![]() It is surprising to many that Warner has received royalties from stage productions, television shows, movies or greeting cards using the lyrics to “Happy Birthday to You,” bringing in approximately $2 million a year, according to some estimates. The plaintiff Jennifer Nelson, an independent filmmaker, made a documentary about the song in 2013 and brought the case after Warner filed a claim against a musician who recorded the song during an event in San Francisco. Copyright protection for the songbook, including lyrics and melody to “Good Morning to All,” expired in 1949, thus the melody for Happy Birthday has been in the public domain. ![]() Summy who filed for federal copyright and published it in a songbook. That same year, the sisters assigned their rights to the song to Mr. The melody of the song was actually first composed for “Good Morning to All” in 1893 by sisters Mildred and Patty Hill. ![]() the rights to the melody, and the rights to piano arrangements based on the melody, but never any rights to the lyrics.” Judge King’s 43-page decision examined the complex history of the song that goes back more than a century. rights to the lyrics.Ĭhief Judge George King wrote: “The Hill sisters gave Summy Co. District Court of the Central District of California invalidated a copyright claim to the lyrics of the song of “Happy Birthday To You.” The court held that Warner/Chapelle Music, Inc., successors of Summy Co., was not able to show that the original writers, Patty Hill and Mildred Hill, ever gave Summy Co. On September 22, 2015, a judge of the U.S. ![]()
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