Slightly off topic but
On Jul 7, 2013, at 12:23 PM, Klaus Krippendorff <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Do you know that the common song "happy birthday to you ..." is copyrighted. Recently the Boy Scouts of America were sued and had to pay a fine singing it. Movies and public performances have had to pay. It's truly absurd. It is a system worth undermining but one needs to be careful doing so.
Warner/Chappell, a subsidiary of Warner Music Group, claims copyright even though the song has been, by any reasonable assessment, in the public domain for years. Here's a good analysis of the song's PD status if you're interested:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1111624
There's now a lawsuit against Warner for their enforcement of the questionable copyright. Here's an article in Billboard if you're interested:
http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/1566932/lawsuit-against-warnerchappell-music-claims-happy-birthday-belongs-to
The plaintifs are making a film about the song and were told they'd have to pay $15K, a substantial amount of a small documentary's budget. (I've heard the 'Hoop Dreams' had to pay $5K for the song's use in that film.)
I hadn't heard the story about the Boy Scouts. It's quite possible but it also might be a conflation of the "Happy Birthday" stories and ASCAP having threatened to sue the Girl Scouts of America in 1996, claiming that campfire songs for a dues-collecting organization was commercial performance so the Scouts should pay an ASCAP licensing fee. (They later withdrew the threat.)
Gunnar
Gunnar Swanson
East Carolina University
graphic design program
http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cfac/soad/graphic/index.cfm
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Gunnar Swanson Design Office
1901 East 6th Street
Greenville NC 27858
USA
http://www.gunnarswanson.com
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+1 252 258-7006
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