Soon, Everyone May Be Able To Sing 'Happy Birthday' For Free

It's common knowledge these days that traditional song of celebration Happy Birthday, despite its cultural ubiquity, is a copyrighted work, with multi-national record label Warner/Chappell having held the rights to the song for 80 years.

That's why, since 1935 at least, it's been once in a blue moon that we've ever seen the song performed in anything approaching its entirety on TV or at the movies, because — while the average citizen is free to sing it in their own home — such usage would incur a pretty steep fee for the privilege, revealed by a recent court hearing to be ordinarily anywhere between four and six figures.

Even if you don't think you've noticed, it's an obvious trend: shows such as Futurama, Community (its brevity explained via Troy being a Jehovah's Witness), and Star Trek: The Next Generation (just sing the public-domain For He's A Jolly Good Fellow in Klingon!), among others, have all avoided the fee through various creative measures.

However, that restriction may soon be a thing of the past as a US court continues to work through hearing the multiple motions and cross-motions arising from a 2013 class-action complaint regarding the copyrighted nature of what has been described as the English-speaking world's best-known song.

One of the plaintiffs in the case, currently being heard by US District Judge George King at LA's Edward R Roybal Courthouse, Good Morning To You Productions preseident Jennifer Nelson told the court she had to pay $US1500 to use the song for 10 seconds at a festival.

"If you don't pay for the license to the song, they will notify you and let you know that you have to pay," Courthouse News reports Nelson as saying. "They've never actually sued anybody but they have strong-armed people into having to pay." 

Fellow plaintiff and filmmaker Robert Siegel was reported as having paid $3000 to use the song in indie flick Big Fan, with plaintiffs' attorney Mark Rifkin explaining, "For a major motion picture, it could be six figures."

Though the fees incurred by these plaintiffs in particular mightn't rate too highly on the eyebrow-raising scale, the documentary The Corporation asserts that fees of about $10,000 are regularly issued to bigger organisations wanting to perform the song in public.

Warner/Chappell have held copyright control over Happy Birthday since 1935, when the company lodged a federal copyright registration for the song. However, the legitimacy of the registration is being called into question as part of the class-action complaint, with plaintiffs arguing that by the time Warner/Chappell lodged it, the song had been being widely performed in public for more than three decades, and that the initial registration only pertained to "specific piano arrangements" of the song.

The case has been taken under submission by Judge King; there is no indication yet on when we can expect a ruling, but perhaps soon, given the murky nature over claims of authorship and rights-holding dating back to early last century, we'll all be able to enjoy a guilt-free round of Happy Birthday no matter where we are when it goes down.