"Happy Birthday To You" Set To Finally Reach the Public Domain 120
schnell writes: The New York Times reports that "the world's most popular song" is at last poised to be released into the public domain. From the story: "In September, a federal judge ruled that Warner Music, the song's publisher, did not have a valid copyright claim to 'Happy Birthday,' which has been estimated to collect $2 million a year in royalties. But what that ruling meant for the future of the song — and Warner's liability — was unclear, and a trial had been set to begin next week. In a filing on Tuesday in United States District Court in Los Angeles, the parties in the case said they had agreed to a settlement to end the case. The terms of that deal are confidential. But if the settlement is approved by the court, the song is expected to formally enter the public domain." (We mentioned the case in September, too.)
Read: "Warner avoids massive class-action lawsuit" (Score:5, Insightful)
They made hundreds of millions of dollars off of a single fraudulent copyright claim and will experience no repercussions. These are the people RIAA is fighting for.
Re:Read: "Warner avoids massive class-action lawsu (Score:5, Informative)
They made hundreds of millions of dollars off of a single fraudulent copyright claim and will experience no repercussions. These are the people RIAA is fighting for.
These people fund the RIAA (along with the other major labels), so naturally the RIAA fights for them.
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It looks like they settled before class-action status was granted. Or even asked for? If class-action status was granted, this would be dragging out for another year or more as they looked for people to join the action, put it before a judge, and negotiate a settlement.
And the real harm was the chilling effect on using the song. Harder to measure that in monetary terms.
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The real harm was all the creation of all those corporatized chant/non-happy birthday songs.
Who can forget such gems as ..
Applebeeâ(TM)s is fun, itâ(TM)s true,
Especially when we sing for you.
Good news is we sing for free!
Bad news is we sing off key!
Chevys
Happy, happy birthday,
Todayâ(TM)s your birthday day!
You are one year older,
And so weâ(TM)re here to say:
First you get your flan,
And then you eat it, too.
So happy, happy birthday,
From all of us to you!
Ole!
Chuck E. Cheese
Clap your hands!
No
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Are they that much worse than the original?
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Are they that much worse than the original?
Remember that the original was intended for young children. It wasn't supposed to be a great work of musical art; it was intended to be something that a 5-year-old could easily learn to sing.
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Why does that mean it has to be shit? There are plenty of children's tunes that aren't.
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Why would it be invalid? License agreements for patents between corporations are generally like that [anything paid for a royalty/license fee is non refundable, even if patent is later found to be invalid]. Hell, just recently the precedent was set that patent holders can't force royalty payments for time periods after the patent has expired [patent runs out in 2 years, but holder says you pay royalties for 5 or 10 years or you have to wait].
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The plaintiff would need to show that Warner knew or should have known that the copyright was expired. Then the contract might be thrown out by a judge for being fraudulent.
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The plaintiff would need to show that Warner knew or should have known that the copyright was expired. Then the contract might be thrown out by a judge for being fraudulent.
The "smoking gun" in the whole thing was the copy of the original publication that Warner presented to the court. It has a smudged-out piece of text that they claimed no knowledge of. Someone found a copy of the book in a library, and the text wasn't smudged out. It was the original copyright information.
Ya can look it up ... (Try googling "Happy Birthday smudge" .;-)
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So based on my complete absence of expertise, I'd guess the contract could be invalidated on the basis that the recipient didn't get anything of value. That's assuming Warner only licensed the song, of course. They might have licensed rights to a catalogue of songs o
Re:Read: "Warner avoids massive class-action lawsu (Score:5, Interesting)
I actually find it hard to believe that this is true. I'm half-tempted to make a bet that, within a year, this will be back in court.
Hmm... Anyone want to take the bet? I'll sing and upload the song if it's not back in court within a year from today if anyone wants to take the opposite bet where they sing and upload the song (and accept the consequences).
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When I break out in song the top request is "The refrain from singing"...
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Happy Birthday to You, Happy Birthday to You (Score:1)
Chemo (Score:5, Insightful)
That Happy Birthday of all things could have stayed so long locked under copyright is the prime example of why Copyright is such a horrible cancer for society.
This is not about anything but making more profit for big labels.
Re:Chemo (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes! Down with copyright! Musicians and writers should never be paid!
Most of them never have been paid. Copyright as interpreted by the courts in the US and many other countries is basically a tool for the publishing and recording industries to insist that the creators sign the copyright over to them, otherwise their newly-created works will never be seen or heard by the public. Once an artist signs the "standard" contracts, they have no further rights over their creative works, and only get paid the minimum that their corporate masters decide will keep them producing.
Of course, the internet has made some inroads on that. I know a number of musicians who are making more from their personal web site than they'd ever get from a recording-industry contract. But the legalities surrounding this are a bit tricky, and lots of artists get tricked into signing away the rights to their output anyway.
(I've had fun pointing out the statement in many ISP and other "hosting" companies contracts saying that anything copied to their machines become the property of the company. ISPs routinely ban and block web servers on customers' sites, and generously offer to host the web site on the company's machine. Then, when a musician or writer produces a best seller, the ISP can step in and claim the income for themselves, since the artist agreed to the contract that transfers the copyright to the ISP. The ISPs can make it rather tricky to avoid this gotcha.)
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Property doesn't grant copyright (i.e. the right to make copies.) Just as if you buy a copy of a CD, that copy becomes your property, but it doesn't entitle you the right to make copies and distribute (with the exception of fair use purposes.) It would need language like "you agree to transfer all copyrights to anything you upload", and good luck with that if their customers didn't own those rights to begin with (which in many cases they don't, i.e. Apple doesn't own the copyrights to its iTunes songs that
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You're confused. Labels typically own the master recordings (because they pay for them - that's part of what a label does), but the copyright on the composition remains the property of the writer(s). They might use a publisher in order to publish the composition, but that doesn't negate or diminish their copyright.
Label deals are usually terrible and one-sided, but they also give the artist exposure that's difficult to come by (and impossible to come by pre-internet) otherwise. The artists are left to ma
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I'm not a lawyer (check with one if you don't want to get legal advice on important matters from random pseudonymous geeks on the internet), but I don't think a contract to transfer copyright, as opposed to a contract that does transfer copyright, is valid. Alternately, you could argue that the contract is a contract of adhesion (a contract that you don't have a chance to negotiate, but have to agree to in order to get something), and that automatically transferring the copyright is more than a contract o
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But not for an imaginary good. Not for a mental construct. Playing pretend and calling dibs is for children.
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Yes! Down with copyright! Musicians and writers should never be paid!
Agreed; get real jobs.
*sigh* Another wrong righted. *Skips away*
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
What I like best is (Score:5, Interesting)
Dastar v. Fox (Score:4, Informative)
trademarks do not expire
Trademarks die once they are no longer distinctive. Exclusive rights under the Lanham Act cannot be used to extend the effective term of an expired U.S. copyright. See Dastar v. Fox [wikipedia.org].
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Incorrect. When the copyright expires on the works that Mickey Mouse is in, those can be freely copied once those enter the public domain. Now, the interesting question would be, as a trademark, can Mickey Mouse be used under fair use? Obviously you cannot create a full blown Mickey Mouse cartoon, but what would be permissible?
I know, I know, I'm dreaming that Disney won't buy 1000 year copyright extensions every time that comes close to occurring.
IANA[PTC]L
Re:What I like best is (Score:4, Informative)
Now, the interesting question would be, as a trademark, can Mickey Mouse be used under fair use?
I would think it'd depend on the precise way the cartoon is used. I would expect that if you posted the early MM movies on your website, under a disclaimer saying that these were produced by Disney and are now out of copyright, that you would be ok. However, if you posted them in a way that made users think your website was Disney approved, then you would be in trouble.
This site is really good IMHO [ivanhoffman.com], (and also check out the section on fair use of trademarks):
if the mark is being used by another party in such a manner that potential consumers are likely to believe that such use is endorsed by or is otherwise associated with the mark’s owner, then the mark’s owner may have rights to prevent such use and to seek damages and other remedies for the same.
That page makes clear that trademark rights are not as strong as copyright rights, and they are harder to get. You don't get a trademark just by creating a character.
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You could make new Mickey Mouse cartoons as long as you base then solely on the public domain aspects and can convincingly argue that your updates aren't taken from still-copyrighted material. And you will have to argue because Disney will sue your ass even though you are in the right.
See new "Sherlock Holmes" stories and the machinations of the estate of Arthur Conan Doyle for precedent.
http://free-sherlock.com/ [free-sherlock.com]
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Probably never
Then again, thanks to the internet, maybe locked out content will be treated as damage and routed around. I mean as much as love movies I feel like that industry is fading. It'll still kick around, like theatre, but it won't be the same.
In a perfect world big stupid companies like Disney fight and spend stupid amounts of money to keep the rights to all this garbage just in time for nobody to give a shit anymore
Mickey and Pooh leave prison in 2024 (Score:4, Interesting)
the copyright on a song [from] the 30s is _still_ being contested.
U.S. copyright in works of authorship first published in 1923 through 1977 or later subsists for 95 years after the end of the year in which the work was first published. If a song's lyrics were first published in the 1930s, it would have fallen under this rule. A pre-1923 publication, on the other hand, would have put the lyrics in the public domain.
Anyone remember when the Mouse is up
The keystone of copyright in Mickey Mouse is three short films published in 1928: Plane Crazy, The Gallopin' Gaucho, and Steamboat Willie. Likewise, the keystone of copyright in Winnie the Pooh is the books Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, the latter having been first published in 1928. Under current law, copyright in these works expires at the end of 2023, meaning those characters become fair game starting in 2024. (And before you say "trademark", read through Dastar v. Fox.)
for another extension?
The Supreme Court has allowed re-extension of a copyright term that had already been extended, but only when the extension has had the intent of harmonizing the term to that of another major developed market. For example, the Court in Eldred v. Ashcroft allowed the 1998 extension to let the U.S. harmonize with the European Union but was careful to distinguish it from what copyright reform advocates have since called "perpetual copyright on the installment plan." With which major developed market would a subsequent term extension prior to the end of 2023 harmonize?
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Does TPP extend copyright terms?
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Outside of the US it "harmonizes" copyright to meet the new US duration. So for lots of the world it does extend copyright.
All it takes is for one country to extend it some more, and then everyone else can ratchet theirs up in the name of consistency.
3. Profit!
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In fact... The US is getting its copyright terms extended by the TPP. Mexico has life-plus-100-years since 1995, and as a signer country of TPP, that will make our (stupid) terms become the norm for all of the other partners. Yay for harmonization :-P
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The US is getting its copyright terms extended by the TPP. Mexico has life-plus-100-years since 1995
Where does the released TPP text say that the copyright term shall be extended past life plus 70? I thought it just said life plus 70 is a minimum. The EU's extension from life plus 50 to life plus 70 was ultimately to reconcile the original rationale for the Berne copyright term, which was the life of heirs who knew the author personally, with life spans that had been extended by better health care. Besides, the EU is far more economically powerful than Mexico. Thus any attempt at "harmonization" to Mexico
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Would be great to harmonize for less rather than for more. But it has never been seen, and probably never will.
Eminent (public) domain (Score:2)
I've read that harmonizing for less would be perceived as a 'taking' under the Fifth Amendment and would thus require the logistical nightmare of providing "just compensation" for all copyright owners for the portion of the copyright term "taken for public use".
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That's one theory. It may or may not be valid. However, if we reduce to 75 years for corporate copyright and 50 after death for personal, we'll find that almost all the stuff going into public domain has little value. There aren't all that many people paying for early Mickey Mouse cartoons.
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There aren't all that many people paying for early Mickey Mouse cartoons.
The point is that once the copyright expires, people can lawfully make new Mickey and Pooh cartoons.
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> So it could be the song 'ice ice baby' will come out of copyright before the Jimi Hendrix.
The lyrics maybe, but not the tune. "Under Pressure" by Queen & Bowie came out in 1981.
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I believe they started with Mexico, life + 100. By the time 2023 rolls around they'll have gotten a few other countries to "harmonize" with Mexico
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I wrote another comment about why harmonization to Mexico isn't as persuasive [slashdot.org].
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"Under current law, copyright in these works expires at the end of 2023"
The key word here being 'current', of course. No doubt before 2023 the law will have been changed.
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Out side the USA Winnie the Pooh is locked up for life plus some duration. That is 70 years in most places so 2027.
Also while the USA has a ruling on the use of trademarks to lock up copyright for longer that does not apply to the rest of the world.
Why is this relevant, because Happy Birthday has been out of copyright out side the USA for some considerable period of time. However if you wanted to make a movie that had someone singing it you need a license if you wanted to show it in the USA. In effect it wa
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In which countries did case law on the interaction between trademarks and copyrights go the opposite way?
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Which of course the US state department has been dutifully trying to do at the request of the copyright lobby so it can be extended domestically.
You can bet your ass that people are working diligently to ensure that the needs of the copyright lobby are served, because US foreign policy has been so thoroughly polluted with serving corporate interests there's no other option.
Uncle Sam is on the tak
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that the copyright on a song whose melody was composed in 1893 and lyrics in the 30s is _still_ being contested. IIRC nothing has lapsed into the public domain since 2010, and that's not likely to change. Anyone remember when the Mouse is up for another extension?
If Mickey Mouse were to sing Happy Birthday, the clash of copyright forces would annihilate the known universe.
Wait, never mind. It happened already, with no catastrophic effects. [youtube.com]
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Under EU law, unpublished works lose their copyright protection and become public domain after 50 years. 50 years ago... that was 1965. Lots of music still relevant today was being made (Beatles, Rolling Stones, etc). Some of those songs had a dozen or more alternate takes. Some record companies are now releasing them to prevent them from going into the public domain. Many record companies don't have their shit together and have allowed them to lapse.
Many (pre-1964, soon pre-1965) Beatles recordings
Yet another IP category (Score:2)
Beatles' songs are covered by copyright — Yes, the (mostly) Lennon/McCartney lyrics and music. But the audio recordings are covered by a completely different beast, the "related performance rights", which have their own rulebook.
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that the copyright on a song whose melody was composed in 1893 and lyrics in the 30s is _still_ being contested. IIRC nothing has lapsed into the public domain since 2010, and that's not likely to change. Anyone remember when the Mouse is up for another extension?
Times being what they are, Mein Kampf is becoming public domain and will be published again:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new... [telegraph.co.uk]
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Do you reckon they'll make a movie of it?
Royalty refund (Score:2)
In addition to a declaration that copyright did not subsist in "Happy Birthday to You", the lawsuit sought a refund of royalties to the class of licensees. I imagine the confidentiality relates to Warner's payout under that claim.
"World's Most Popular"? (Score:3)
Isn't the most popular song that "Watch me whip, now watch me neigh neigh!" song?!
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I have gotta stop Googlin' shit I find on Slashdot. You'd think I'd know better by now. How the hell do you even know that? I don't know which one of us should be more ashamed of ourselves. :/
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Not according to YouTube, "Silentà - Watch Me" is not even in the top 20.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
1. "Gangnam Style" 2,465,911,892
2. "Blank Space" 1,326,124,076
3. "Baby" 1,249,211,311
4. "See You Again" 1,216,871,611
5. "Dark Horse" 1,196,348,746
6. "Uptown Funk"1,194,402,414
7. "Shake It Off" 1,192,095,624
8. "Bailando" 1,179,675,147
9. "Roar" 1,165,459,427
10. "All About That Bass" 1,141,592,739
11. "Counting Stars" 1,057,017,413
12. "Wheels On The Bus" 1,042,
Sigh. (Score:1)
Regardless of the courts or Warner Bros (Score:1)
The song has been in public domain for many decades now. Warner Bros has just falsely taken money from people. Perhaps they should be sued?
Warner Bros is wrong as they are on so many of their other expired copyrights and the courts are just stupid. But when the rich pay for the laws to be written by political brides, this is what we get.
I'll take my rights now (Score:5, Interesting)
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Secession doesn't have to be the first thing you go to. My point is that it should be explicitly allowed. If it were explicitly allowed a lot of things would be different and you'd be much less likely to ever get to the point of needing it, and we'd have a lot less people contemplating it.
From a certain point of view a person practicing civil disobedience may be said to have seceded, perhaps partially. In the late 1700s and early 1800s many or most of the statesmen in the U.S. believed in the right of st
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Getting way off topic here, but...
You forgot about "jury box" in your list, which is typically considered option #3, the theory being that juries can nullify unjust laws by refusing to convict people who break them. Of course government courts have long since prohibited defendants from making a case based on that argument however.
By your definition, I guess most of the countries in the world throughout human history have/had poorly designed systems of government. Governments which respect freedom of speec
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Civil disobedience is the process of breaking unjust laws and accepting the punishments. It can be practiced in any circumstances where there is a government, although it may not be worth it. Simply disobeying the law, while trying to avoid punishment, can also be practiced wherever there are laws, and this can help push for changes in the law. It's options you always have, and if you consider that a "basic right" then that's fine with me.
By its nature, civil disobedience is illegal. Consider the mar
New version (Score:1)
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Unless you're Warner Music,
In which case sod off.
Already in public domain (Score:2)
Here's an interesting twist (Score:3)
In a twist to the case, the Association for Childhood Education International, a nonprofit group that was co-founded by Patty Hill [the sister of the composer of the song] and has collected a large portion of the song’s royalties, filed a motion last month arguing that if Warner did not control the copyright to “Happy Birthday,” then it did.
No dystopian future here (Score:2)
Really world's most popular song? (Score:1)
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In many Latin American countries, the same melody is sung "Feliz cumpleaños a tí / feliz cumpleaños a tí / feliz cumpleaños querido _____ / feliz cumpleaños a tí".
In Israel (yes, I know, not too many people speak Hebrew; the country's population is ~0.1% of the world population) it's the same case.
I would expect the same to hold in many other cultures.
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Same in China, where it's "Zhu ni shengri kuaile / Zhu ni shengri kuaile / Shengri kuaile _____ / Zhu ni shengri kuaile".
(Damn it, when is Slashdot going stop filtering out Hanzi?)
Re: Really world's most popular song? (Score:1)
Will not happen (Score:2)
This will not happen, I can assure that Happy Birthday will not be entering the public domain any time soon. When there is money to be made the corporate scumbags will do anything to keep this copyrighted perpetually.
Dubious (Score:1)
And a reminder, the court ruled that Warner Music did not have valid copyright. That's not the same as ruling that "Happy et al" is public domain. American courts never do something so useful. Instead they leave the situation open to future litigation.
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Warner Brothers does not have a valid copyright. Someone else could come forward with a valid copyright; there's not enough information to rule that out.
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"Stuff that matters". Which this does.
In case you've not noticed, Slashdot has been posting stories relating to copyright issues since Chips&Dips days. Maybe *you* don't care about this topic (or you just fail to recognise that it's heaps bigger than just the song "Happy Birthday To You", which is just the tip of the iceberg), but lots of technically-minded folks do, and many of them have personal and/or business-related concerns about it as well.