A filmmaker is suing to make the song "Happy Birthday to You" free for everyone to use. 
 
 The plaintiff, Good Morning to You Productions Corp., a New York-based company that is making a documentary about the song, said it belongs in the public domain. 
 
 Warner/Chappell Music Inc., the publishing arm of Warner Music Group, owns "Happy Birthday to You," meaning it has exclusive rights over the song's reproduction, distribution and public performances. 
 
 According to Good Morning to You's class-action lawsuit, filed in New York, the company had to pay Warner/Chappell $1,500 for a license to use the song. 
 
 As the 26-page court document notes, the song has a history dating back 120 years. 
 
 The tune's origins go back to the 1893 song "Good Morning to All" by sisters Mildred J. Hill and Patty Smith Hill. 
 
 The lyrics were: "Good morning to you / Good morning to you / Good morning dear children / Good morning to all." 
 
 That song eventually evolved into "Happy Birthday." 
 
 The suit aims to return "millions of dollars" in licensing fees from Warner/Chappell to thousand of people and groups that have paid the company to use the song. 
 
 Until that happens, be careful at your next birthday party. 
 
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 Follow on Twitter: @rfaughnder 
 
 
 
 ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites. ||||| In the past we've joked about the (supposed) fact that the song "Happy Birthday" remains under copyright, due to a copyright originally held by sisters Mildred and Patti Hill, the claimed original authors of the song. However, William Patry points us to a fascinatingly detailed research paper into questions surrounding the copyright . What comes out of it is pretty strong evidence that the copyright is-- but it's never gotten far enough in court to have a decision rendered. Plus, it sounds like many aspects of the "history" of the song really appear to be close to a myth.The sisters in question may have written the melody, but they almost definitely did not write the lyrics (their original copyright was on a different set of lyrics, "Good Morning to All"). As for the melody, there's plenty of evidence to suggest that it was actually taken from a series of extremely similar songs. So, there's a good chance they wrote neither the melody nor the lyrics. Also, there are numerous questions concerning whether or not the copyright holders correctly followed the various rules required of copyright holders at the time, suggesting that even if there were a legal copyright at some point, it's long since expired. And, of course, there's even some evidence to suggest less-than-legal tactics involved with transferring around some of the interest in the song. Amazingly, however, the legitimacy of the copyright has never been determined in court, and it now generates over $2 million per year. Over 1% of the money that ASCAP distributes to songwriters is for this one song, even though it may not be legitimate. Somehow, I doubt this is what the Founding Fathers intended when they wrote the Constitution.
– A New York filmmaker is on a mission: To make what's regarded as the world's most often performed song one that can be belted out free of charge. Filmmaker Jennifer Nelson and her company, Good Morning to You Productions, have filed a class-action lawsuit against the publishing branch of Warner Music, which claims ownership of "Happy Birthday to You." She wants the song put in the public domain and Warner/Chappell to return the licensing fees it has earned off it—pegged at about $2 million a year, according her lawyer. Nelson herself paid Warner/Chappell $1,500 to use the song in a planned documentary about the tune, reports the Los Angeles Times. Tech Dirt applauds the move as a long time coming, writing that "as we've been pointing out for years, the song is almost certainly in the public domain." It outlines a series of issues with the copyright, beginning with the fact that the sisters credited with writing it more than a century ago "appear to have written neither the music nor the lyrics." The complaint reads: "Irrefutable documentary evidence, some dating back to 1893, shows that the copyright to 'Happy Birthday to You,' if there ever was a valid copyright to any part of the song, expired no later than 1921." Click for the full complaint.