This means that if you sing Happy Birthday to yourįamily at home, you're probably not committing copyright infringment. Licensed in these situations, it's infringement. Performances of songs like Happy Birthday. Courts haveįound that restaurants, camps, and other venues benefit indirectly from
In mind: "indirect commercial advantage" is very broad. Singing the song among a group of people "without any direct or indirectĬommercial advantage" will not constitute infringement either. Substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a familyĪnd its social acquaintances is gathered."Īdditionally, United States Code Title 17, §110(4) states that Or display it at a place open to the public or at any place where a Is Singing Happy Birthday in Public Really CopyrightĪccording to United States copyright law in United States Code, Titleġ7 §106, authors of works such as musical compositions have theĮxclusive right "to perform the copyrighted work publicly." Inġ7 §101, the law defines publicly performing a work as "to perform Judge rule on Brauneis's suggestions, we'll continue to give Warner and The song continues to be enforced and Warner Brothers continues toĬollect more than $2 million each year in royalties. Questions about the history of Happy Birthday. Happyīirthday's copyright is licensed and enforced by ASCAP, and the simple little dittyīrings in more than USD $2 million in annual royalties.įor more information on the history of the tune, lyrics, andĬopyright status, check out these resources:Īrticle on the legal status of Happy BirthdayĪrticle on Happy Birthday and copyright by Kembrew McLeodĪrticle on parts of the history of Happy Birthday that you might notĪrticle by law professor Robert Brauneis has raised some important Lies securely in the hands of the Time Warner company. Summy Company is no longer independent, but, throughĪ chain of purchases, the copyright for Happy Birthday To You Repeatedly over the last quarter of the twentieth century and theĬopyright for Happy Birthday is now not due to expire until While theĬopyright should have expired in 1991, copyright has been extended Published and copyrighted Happy Birthday in 1935. Similarities between Good Morning to All and Happyīirthday and to secure the copyright to the song. Hill (another Hill sister) was able to demonstrate undeniable Happy Birthday, it showed up in a few places before Jessica While it is not entirely clear who first wrote down the words for Public domain, and is safe to hum in public without permission. The tune was first published in 1893 in the book Song
Was called Good Morning to All, but bore the recognizable The melody for Happy Birthday was first penned by two You are involved in a public performance of that work?ĭid you know an unauthorized public performance is often a form ofĬopyright infringement? Is Happy Birthday Really Copyrighted? or among a substantial number of people who are not family or friends After all, copyright has been retroactively extended before! Stay tuned! In the meantime, we'll keep this page here for historical purposes.ĭid you know Happy Birthday is copyrighted and the copyright isĬurrently owned and actively enforced by Time Warner?ĭid you know that if you sing any copyrighted song: We are currently planning a campaign to push for a retroactive extension of copyright law to place “Happy Birthday,” and other works, back into the private domain where they belong! We believe this is a winnable fight. What incentive will there be for anybody to pen the next “Happy Birthday” knowing that less than a century after their deaths - their estates and the large multinational companies that buy their estates - might not be able to reap the financial rewards from their hard work and creativity? It is horrible news for anybody who cares that creators, their heirs, etc., are fairly remunerated when their work is performed. This is horrible news for the future of music. In 2016, a settlement was announced that calls for a judge to officially declare that the song is in the public domain.
In 2015, Time Warner's copyright claim to “Happy Birthday” was declared invalid. Unfortunately, a series of recent legal rulings have forced us to suspend our campaign.