Who Owns The Happy Birthday Song

But when the song has been used for commercial purposes such as in films.

Who owns the happy birthday song. Children s praise and worship published the song in 1928 edited by byers byrum and koglin. The filmmaker plans to make the suit a class action and demand return of millions of dollars in royalties paid over recent years by different folks using the song. A filmmaker balking at paying a royalty in a planned documentary on the famous happy birthday song decided to sue warner chappell music who says they own it. The rights to the song were purchased by warner chappell for 16 million 25m in the 1980s.

An ip valuation expert retained by the plaintiffs estimated that the song was to reap between 14 million to 16 5. Despite raking in millions off of happy birthday strong evidence exists that warner chappell may not even own the copyright to the song. The tune of the song is believed to have been written by a woman from kentucky named mildred j. But it might soon become part of a contentious legal battle.

Warner chappell has been collecting an estimated 2 million annually from people who use the happy birthday song mainly in creative works like movies and television shows. The same went for singing the song in a public restaurant although it never stopped anyone from. The song happy birthday is owned by a subsidiary of the media conglomeration known as aol time warner. Warners was expecting to have happy birthday under copyright until 2030.

People who sing happy birthday in their homes or at private gatherings have typically never been at risk of a lawsuit. Usually happy birthday is a happy celebratory song that often precedes cake and ice cream. Her sister patty smith hill had already composed a simple greeting song called good morning to you for her students. There s an interesting twist to all of this.

According to the suit the song was written by mildred and patty hill and sold to clayton summy in 1893 for 10 of the retail sales of the sheet music. Hill sometime around 1893. In 1924 robert coleman included good morning to all in a songbook with the birthday lyrics as a second verse. Jennifer nelson the president and owner of the new york based good morning to you production corp is producing a documentary about the history of happy birthday to you.