Everybody knows the song "Happy Birthday to You", but nobody is allowed to use it in movies or just about anywhere else without paying a fortune for the rights. Now, a lawsuit in federal court argues the song should belong to all of us with birthdays.
As the New York Times reported earlier this month, a filmmaker working on a documentary about "Happy Birthday" was told she'd have to cough up $1,500 to use it in her movie and is now suing to have the song returned into the public domain. Warner/Chappel, a subsidiary of Warner Music Group that declined to comment to the Times, bought the song for $25 million in 1988, but the lawsuit claims the song's copyright "expired no later than 1921" — that is, if the song ever left the public domain at all.
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