Birthday Song's Copyright Leads To a Lawsuit For the Ages

New submitter chriscappuccio sends this excerpt from the NY Times: "The song 'Happy Birthday to You' is widely credited for being the most performed song in the world. But one of its latest venues may be the federal courthouse in Manhattan, where the only parties may be the litigants to a new legal battle. The dispute stems from a lawsuit filed on Thursday by a filmmaker in New York who is seeking to have the court declare the popular ditty to be in the public domain, and to block a music company from claiming it owns the copyright to the song and charging licensing fees for its use. The filmmaker, Jennifer Nelson, was producing a documentary movie, tentatively titled 'Happy Birthday,' about the song, the lawsuit said. In one proposed scene, the song was to be performed."

Comments

In other news

[Anonymous Coward]

I've copyrighted the phrase "fuck all the lawyers", so you need to send me a check if you want to use it.

Re:In other news

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure you could claim that this is an original work of authorship.
Perhaps you could word it as a catchy jingle ^_^

Re:In other news

[organgtool]

Best part is you'd have no trouble finding a lawyer to help you sue someone who used the above phrase.

You're right, you wouldn't have trouble finding a lawyer. And that's one of my biggest problems with a lot of lawyers: many of them have no sense of morality or justice. I'm not just talking about lawyers who represent defendants of violent crimes because I realize that they deserve a fair trial. I am referring to all of the lawyers that would argue either side of a case depending on which side offered them more money. These people are not driven by an inner sense of justice and making the world a better place, but simply following their own motivations of greed and rationalizing away any negative effects their greedy actions are causing society. Luckily not all lawyers are like that, but the greedy ones certainly paint a very negative image of lawyers in general and that image is hard to shake.

Re:In other news

[Algae_94]

I am referring to all of the lawyers that would argue either side of a case depending on which side offered them more money. These people are not driven by an inner sense of justice and making the world a better place, but simply following their own motivations of greed and rationalizing away any negative effects their greedy actions are causing society.

It's almost like it's a job for them to argue cases, not some quest to improve the world.

Protecting the arts and artists

[torkus]

Right? /sarcasm

I'm glad someone is pushing this topic (finally) and this is the perfect example. It's one thing to protect artists but the never-ending copyright extensions doing nothing of the sort. They ensure the media companies can generate recurring profits but, by and large, provide limit benefit to those actually responsible for the work. Oh wait...corporations are people now too.

Hopefully this is decided firmly, not on some silly technicality, and sets a precedent for other cases so common-use media can be pushed into public domain. Maybe someone will rule that copyright law is unfair, unconstitutional, or similar and FORCE our government to review this and move to a more rational policy.

Re:Protecting the arts and artists

[Anonymous Coward]

Culture is being held ransom; music, literature, film, television... any medium you can think of is illegal to share, perform or otherwise widely enjoy without paying a gatekeeper. Thanks to the nature of the system if something isn't "saleable" it is left forgotten to rot in some media archive somewhere.

Back at the turn of the 20th century piano roll music was quite popular and sophisticated however much of it is lost forever because of the same kind of greed.

Re:Protecting the arts and artists

[MickyTheIdiot]

1) Put in reforms that revert copyright back to a shield and curb it's use as a sword.

And one of the best ways to do that is...

2) Disallow corporations to own copyrights. Require that they be in the name of actual persons and make it so they can only be leased to a corporate entity. That way the corporation is beholden to SOMEONE.

and of course

3) Get rid of Micky Mouse copyright.

Re:Protecting the arts and artists

[Migraineman]

Also - copyright terminates when the author(s) die. None of this life-plus-eleventy-thousand-years crap. When you kick, your works revert into the public domain ... we *all* benefit from that.

Re:Protecting the arts and artists

[mwvdlee]

1) Copyrights are supposed to encourage the creator to create more work. As soon as the creator is dead, the chances of her/him creating more work are somewhat diminished. At most a copyright period should be for N years or natural death of the creator, whichever comes first.

2) Corporations should be allowed to have some sort of copyright, after all, their payments to creators enables the creators' work. But these copyrights could be much smaller and of a different nature. Like an "exclusive license" that lasts upto the point the product is no longer actively published. "Actively" could be reasonably specified in some way; i.e. after the first year where sold copies amount to 10% of first-year sales.

3) How about getting rid of Mickey Mouse entirely?

Re:Protecting the arts and artists

[Holi]

Corporations are not people, they are a legal economic structure to protect the owners personal assets.

How can corporations be people when they are property?

Re:Protecting the arts and artists

[aaarrrgggh]

What do you think a corporation is? If we just switched the term corporation to business would your suggestion start to fall apart? When an author/artist dies, so does their copyright?

Let's pretend I make a movie. The day before release, the individual assigned for the copyright is shot. Can my competitors now charge admission to replay my movie?

The real problem is just duration, not the entity holding the piece of paper. You could argue the need for a moral copyright beyond a commercial copyright, but I think you end up on the same slippery slope.

12 Years from first commercial publication.

Re:Protecting the arts and artists

[fustakrakich]

Just posting for the hell of it. The message is in the sig... It is a universal truth.

Re:Protecting the arts and artists

[Sloppy]

I have a plan for changing this at the basic political level, finally getting rid of absurdly-long copyright terms. (And coincidentally, my plan should work for addressing the overbroadness domestic surveillance powers, too.)

The plan is to vote for Republicans or Democrats. (I haven't yet decided which; that's a minor detail.) This way, I can get Republicans or Democrats into key policy-making positions, where they will finally be able to enact the changes they have been promising.

Everyone, if you think the current laws are unfair and ridiculous and you want to Do Something about it, November 2014 will be your first big chance: vote to finally get some Republicans or Democrats into congress. And then in November 2016 vote for a Republican or Democrat president too. (Can you imagine the changes we would see at DoJ, if only we were to have a Republican or Democrat president? Can you imagine the reforms we would see in copyright law, if only we have a Republican or Democrat majority in the houses? Can you imagine what limits would be imposed upon the NSA by the president, if only we were to elect a Republican or Democrat to that job?)

CHANGE CAN HAPPEN, if you do what is necessary to make it happen. For that, the parties (Republicans and Democrats) who are against the status quo, and instead, support common-sense reform, need your support. These parties have never had the opportunity to show their colors, and if only we would give them the chance, I'm sure they wouldn't let us down.

Re:Protecting the arts and artists

[mooingyak]

Also - copyright terminates when the author(s) die. None of this life-plus-eleventy-thousand-years crap. When you kick, your works revert into the public domain ... we *all* benefit from that.

I'd rather just a straight up term of 30 years (or whatever number is most reasonable), regardless of whether or not the author is still alive.

Re:Protecting the arts and artists

[Dr. Sheldon Cooper]

Whoosh. Bigtime.

Re:Protecting the arts and artists

[kasperd]

Except that copyright is already tied to the life of the author. It's just the life of the author plus a really stupidly long time...

That additional time is so long, that it removes all incentive to attempt influencing the expiry time. Either the author is already dead, in which case the expiry time can only be changed by changing the law. Or the author is still alive, in which case the copyright of the work will last for so many years into the future, that no living person will care about the exact date. It is easier to influence the expiry time by having the laws changed, which is happening faster than copyrights are expiring.

I personally, in this current system, would limit copyright for all works to a mere five years. With a requirement to retain attribution for maybe another five or ten years after that. But, ten to fifteen years after a work is first published, or say twenty after it is first recorded (if not published), make it fall into true public domain, without even the requirement for attribution.

I agree it should be tied to the publication date. But I think five years is too short. I consider 20 years from the first publication (with author's permission) to be more appropriate. It should come with certain requirements, such as the work remaining available for purchase. Attribution requirements should last longer, but derivative works should be possible. If a product is leaked without author's permission, then the time shouldn't start ticking yet. But there need to be a limit on how many years can pass between such a leak and the actual publication, if full term copyright is to be retained. There also need to be rules preventing any loopholes from making money off a staged "leak" and then retaining copyright after a later "publication" date.

Re:Protecting the arts and artists

[j-beda]

I'd rather just a straight up term of 30 years (or whatever number is most reasonable), regardless of whether or not the author is still alive.

First decade for free, $10 registration for the next year, doubling every year after that, in perpetuity. This allows the "owner" to extract any economic value they can see in the item, and very quickly puts the vast majority of works into the public domain. Central registration also makes it easy to find the owner if you actually do want access to the work for licensing or the like, or to find out if the work has been registered. Each ten years the cost go up by a factor of 1024.

Year 11 - $10 (total $10)
Year 12 - $20 (total $30)
Year 13 - $40 (total $70)
Year 14 - $80 (total $150)
etc.

Price for year "n" = $10 x 2^(n-10)
Total price to pay for every year up to and including year "n" = $10 x ( 2^(n-9) - 1)

Year 20 costs $10240, total cost $20470
Year 30 costs $10,485,760, total costs $20,971,510

The details of the free period length or the first yearly amount can of course be changed, but the doubling rate is what makes this type of system work. Make it five years free and one dollar for the 6th year, and it works great too. Heck, one penny for the first year gets you to the ten bucks level in a decade, so maybe that's the way to go.

Re:Protecting the arts and artists

[Calydor]

When even Dr. Sheldon Cooper gets the joke there is no excuse for not getting it yourself.

I hope the judge opens the case by saying

[Anonymous Coward]

"By the way, today happens to be my birthday."

Re:I hope the judge opens the case by saying

[Stormthirst]

+1 Funny - I so hope he does.

Unfortunately, I suspect the media company's immediate response would be to file a motion to have the judge removed because of obvious bias.

We need more than that

[ArcadeMan]

Bring back the original copyright terms:

The original length of copyright in the United States was 14 years, and it had to be explicitly applied for. If the author wished, he could apply for a second 14year monopoly grant, but after that the work entered the public domain, so it could be used and built upon by others.

How about "25 years without any extension, then it goes into the public domain". What these money-hungry Hollywood and publishing executives don't seem to realize is that everything DRM'ed will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.

Re:We need more than that

[Racemaniac]

Wouldn't 5 years be more than enough? i thought part of the goal was to stimulate artist to make new stuff. if you can ride it out for 25 years on 1 hit you once scored, it's not much motivation to create something new -_-

Re:We need more than that

[Piata]

5 years is probably too short. While I hate copyright, it also prevents mega corps from co-opting people's creations and selling it back to us/using it to sell their products and services. They already do this to a certain extent but could you imagine how awful it would be if they had free reign to do anything they wanted with everything after 5 years?

Imagine you wrote a song, filmed a short video or created this amazing illustration and 5 years later it was used by corporations to sell everything from toothpaste to cars. How would you feel about that?

Copyright law cuts both ways. While it's often controlled and exploited by the mega-corps it's also the only line of defense independent artists have against those same mega-corps.

Re:We need more than that

[ArcadeMan]

We don't require construction workers to tear down their house every 5 years

The construction workers don't get a check from tenants every month either.

Re:The word "limited"

[MickyTheIdiot]

What I find funny is that the "strict constitutionalists" in our politics today have no problems with IP. People like Clarance Thomas talk about "original intent" but never have a problem with these matters. If there is one thing that has outstripped original intent of the constitution it's copyright. It wasn't put there for people to make money. It was put there to encourage people to be creative. Copyright in perpetuity does NOT encourage people to be creative.

Re:factoid

[Mitchell314]

Welcome to the Machine.

Come with me. On behalf of Pink Floyd's publishers, we have matters to discuss.

But it's...

[Anonymous Coward]

...already IN the public domain! Hapi Berth Dey Two Ewe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f2PCWYAZQc

forced corporate jocularity

[Thud457]

Chili's:
Happy happy birthday from the Chili's crew, we wish it was our birthday so we could party too. HEY!

Carraba's:
Tanti auguri a te
Tanti auguri a te
Tanti auguri a te from Carraba's
Tanti auguri a te.

Bennigan's:
Happy Happy Birthday
On your special Day
Happy Happy Birthday
That's why we're here to say
Happy Happy Birthday
May all your dreams come true
Happy Happy Birthday
From Bennigans to you!

All Chotchkie's waiters are required to wear at least 15 pieces of flair.

Of course it's public domain ...

[wylderide]

... Which is why they're gonna rule in favour Warner, because screw the public. They aren't a corporation. What business do they have owning things that can be owned privately and exploited by individuals. Individuals meaning individual corporations: The real people.

10 years

[stanIyb]

This sort of thing is why copyright should only last for 10 year (or less). No extensions. No nothing. 10 (or less) years. If you can't profit in that amount of time, that's life.

Re:factoid

[TWiTfan]

What really pisses me off is that even a public domain work these days is subject to being "reclaimed" into copyright, if there is money to be made. Just look at "It's a Wonderful Life." No one would have even remembered that movie if it hadn't fell into the public domain and became popular to air around Christmas (since anyone could do it). But when someone realized it was actually making money and had became popular again, of course some corporation immediately sweeps in and reclaims copyright on it. Now it only airs once or twice a year on NBC and no one gives a shit.

IP Rights are an abuse...

[PortHaven]

They do not foster innovation, they impede it. Nor do they benefit the inventors, almost all "inventions" now go to big corporations. Who then abuse them all the more.

Very few musicians see even 10% of the $$$ their music earns.

Our present IP laws are so horrendous, society would be better without them. Sadly, politicians are so bought so we'll only see it get worse.

***

And yes there are better solutions. Patents, should only be held by inventors. And should only be granted for truly novel and new inventions. Nor should a patent prevent anyone else from building a better/cheaper mousetrap. Rather, a patent should merely grant a 10% tax break to the holder or the company of their employ.

This would encourage innovation, keep inventors employed (instead of immediately being laid off by companies after their invention is complete), rather companies would put inventors on their payroll just for the tax break. And then they'd be free to stay home and continue inventing.

That is a far far better solution than our current system which is forcing companies like Google to spend $8 billion buying Motorola to defend themselves against frivolous patents granted to Apple on decades old technologies. And in most cases, not an invention but the mere patenting of a use.

Re:factoid

[TWiTfan]

When I violated Guns-n-Roses' copyrights, Axl Rose not only sued me, he threw me out of Guns-n-Roses. I never even knew I was *in* Guns-n-Roses!

Then don't include life of the author

[tepples]

Then don't include life of the author in the equation at all. Give individual works the same copyright term as works made for hire.

Post-mortem copyrights are supposed to...

[tepples]

Copyrights are supposed to encourage the creator to create more work. As soon as the creator is dead, the chances of her/him creating more work are somewhat diminished.

Post-mortem copyrights are supposed to encourage the author's estate to complete the author's unfinished works rather than shredding them. With no post-mortem copyright, Christopher Tolkien might not have allowed The Silmarillion to see publication.

Re:Post-mortem copyrights are supposed to...

[mwvdlee]

Which brings up an interresting point; is a work copyrighted before it is published/made publically available?
The Simarillion was not published in any (unfinished) form when Tolkien died.
Wouldn't it have been possible for his son to complete the work and claim copyright of the whole work?

Re:Post-mortem copyrights are supposed to...

[tepples]

Copyright comes into existence when a work is fixed, not when it is published. Copyright in an unpublished work lasts 70 years after the death of the author for individual works or 120 years after fixation for works made for hire.

Re:Dartmouth v. Woodward; Southern Pacific

[Anonymous Coward]

Semitroll: wasn't slavery abolished? How did that wording go? What's the legal basis for a person being able to own a person-like entity?

Re:The word "limited"

[Nimey]

Arguably the current copyright system doesn't promote progress of science or useful arts, and there's no indication that copyrights will ever be for a limited time since Disney buys a new law whenever Steamboat Willie is about to leave copyright.

It shouldn't even be copyrighted

[PuckSR]

This is the sad fact. The "Happy Birthday" song shouldn't even be copyrighted.
It is a derivative work on an older song in the public domain(Good Morning To You) and is far too short to receive a copyright.

In other words, imagine if you changed the ending to the alphabet song and then tried to get it copyrighted. That would be laughable, even in our modern pro-IP courts.Yet someone did exactly that decades ago, and then some company has maintained the copyright on the "Happy Birthday" song for all of these years? It is a joke. Fixing this shouldn't even be the first blow for fixing our IP problems. It should just have been challenged in court by someone by now, but the company who "owns" the song only brings it up when they know that it is a large media company who would rather just license the song than try to challenge in court.

Different value appreciations

[Piata]

A finished house is instantly worth money while creative endeavours are often not. Maybe for big corporations there are instant profits to be made but a band or artist that spends 10+ years developing a following and perfecting their artform will often be working for nothing in the hope that eventually it will all pay off. Copyright is abused by Big Media but Copyright is also the only thing that stops Big Media from exploiting independent artists.

Re:Dartmouth v. Woodward; Southern Pacific

[LifesABeach]

Then if a member performs an illegal act, is not the association also performing the same illegal act?

Crporations are ...

[Immerman]

To my mind the problem is the "corporations are people" mantra is only trotted out when it's legally convenient, and is promptly ignored when personhood would be inconvenient. Basically they get all the benefits of being a legal person, with none of the downsides.

So just as an idea, what if we we also classify corporations as something they are much more similar to? Another institution explicitly created for the concentration and leveraging of power (wealth being one form of power). Governments. Let the default assumption be that corporations have to comply with all regulations and constitutional limits imposed on the governments of the jurisdictions that they do business in. Cleary that might require some fragmentation - Google China and Google US would be subject to some fairly incompatible regulations, but that might be for the best. Do we really want to live in a world where corporate power rivals or exceeds that of many/most governments? (Democratic) governments are at least titullarly under the control of their populations, but I realy don't see global cooperation reaching the point where governments can effectively reign in the power of international mega-corporations any time soon, and even if the cooperation existed there doesn't seem to be the will. Not surprising since corporations (and the powerful people controlling them) are themselves largely responsible for selecting and empowering the candidates that the rest of us get to choose between.

Rights without responsibilities

[sjbe]

Then if a member performs an illegal act, is not the association also performing the same illegal act?

An excellent question. If the association (a corporations) has the rights of a person should it not also have the responsibilities of one?

Re:Rights without responsibilities

[pnutjam]

One of the functions of a corporation is to separate some of the aspects of management (control) from ownership. This allows management to hijack capitol in much the same way it hijacks labor. it is essential so that cronyism can flourish.

FTFY