[78-L] Happy Birthday to You

[David Lennick]

Don't forget, you can sing it in Canada for free!

Instrumental versions and Victor Borge's parody (except for the quotes from 
Irving Berlin) should be litigation free.

dl

Cary Ginell wrote:
> I have this disc. I only got it because the other side is by The Wanderers, a Dallas-based western swing band. The Nichols side is odd - features the venerable birthday song sung and performed in a variety of different styles. It's my belief that it was the earliest recording of "Happy Birthday to You." A lawsuit surrounding the copyright of the lyrics was settled around that time, establish the Hill Sisters (Patty & Mildred) as the authors of the lyrics, although this is a huge sticking point with certain researchers. Here's an article I wrote on the song a few years ago for a copyright clearance newsletter.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> P.D. or Not P.D.? That is the Question
> 
> The Happy Birthday Controversy
> 
> By Cary
> Ginell
> 
>  
> 
>             Have you
> ever wondered why you never hear the song Happy Birthday to You sung in
> restaurants when they bring out the free dessert with the little candle in it?
> The reason you don’t hear it is that many restaurants do not have a public
> performance license to cover copyrighted compositions. 
> 
>             Copyrighted compositions? Happy
> Birthday To You? The simple tune is easily the best-known song in the
> English-speaking world, sung to everyone from infants celebrating their first
> birthday to centenarians; from paupers to presidents. But many people do not
> realize that the venerable birthday song is under copyright, and earns millions
> of dollars a year for its current publisher, Warner Chappell Music Corporation,
> which is owned by Time Warner. However, the song has a tangled history that
> has resulted in its present copyright status, a status that is now being
> challenged by a number of musicologists, researchers, and attorneys. 
> 
>              The song’s roots go back to two sisters from Kentucky, Mildred J. and
> Patty Smith Hill. Patty (1868-1946) was a nursery school and kindergarten
> teacher while her sister Mildred (1859-1916) also started out as a teacher but
> changed professions to become a composer, organist, concert pianist, and a
> musical scholar specializing in African-American spirituals. In 1893, Mildred
> and Patty wrote a simple song that was to be used by teachers to greet their
> students each day. Entitled Good Morning to All, the lyrics went:
> 
>  
> 
>                                                             Good
> morning to you,
> 
>                                                             Good
> morning to you,
> 
>                                                             Good
> morning, dear children,
> 
>                                                             Good
> morning to all.
> 
>             
> 
>             The song was first published in the
> songbook Song Stories for the Kindergarten in 1893 with the first of
> several revised editions published in 1896. The copyright was renewed in 1921.
> In the ensuing decades, the now familiar “happy birthday” lyrics were added to
> the Good Morning to All melody, although the identity of the originator
> of the words is unknown. The new words became so popular that they finally
> replaced the original lyrics and the Hills’ composition became a birthday
> celebration song.
> 
>             By the early 1930s, the song, now
> known as Happy Birthday to You, was being used as Western
>  Union’s first singing telegram, and it also appeared in the 1931
> Broadway musical The Band Wagon and Irving Berlin’s As Thousands
> Cheer in 1933.  This prompted a
> lawsuit by a third Hill sister, Jessica Hill, administering on behalf of her
> sister Patty (Mildred had died in 1916). By demonstrating that the melodies to
> the Hills’ Good Morning to All and Happy Birthday to You were
> identical, Jessica was able to secure a copyright for the birthday lyrics for
> the family. Thus, Happy Birthday to You was copyrighted in 1935 by the
> Chicago-based Clayton F. Summy Publishing Company. Under the 1909 Copyright
> Act, the original melody went into the public domain in 1969 but the lyrics
> were renewed in 1963, 28 years after their initial copyright. The Copyright Act
> of 1976 extended the copyright an additional 19 years until 2010 and another 20
> years was tacked on due to the Sonny Bono-sponsored Copyright Term Extension
> Act of 1998. In the 1930s, the Clayton Summy Company was purchased by a New York accountant
> named John F. Sengstack who renamed it Birch Tree Ltd. in the 1970s. In 1998,
> Warner Chappell purchased Birch Tree, whose holdings included Happy Birthday
> to You, for $25 million. Warner Chappell currently reaps an estimated $2
> million in royalties annually from the song. So according to Warner Chappell,
> they own the lyrics to Happy Birthday to You until the year 2030. 
> 
>             Or do they?
> 
>             On March 4, 1924, one Robert H.
> Coleman published a collection of songs entitled Harvest Hymns that
> included the song Good Morning to You, which featured the Happy
> Birthday to You lyrics in the second stanza. The melody was identical to
> the one the Hills wrote in 1893, however, there is no credit listed for either
> the words or the music, nor is there any copyright notice listed (Recently, a
> version of the song published in 1915 has come to light with similar details.).
> 
> 
> It is the contention of some researchers, most
> notably one Bob Katzmarek of Katzmarek Publishing, that the 1935 copyright for Happy
> Birthday to You is invalid (he offers “proof” of this for a $35.00 fee.).
> Katzmarek’s claim is based on the Coleman collection and a section of the 1909
> Copyright Act that states that any song that has been published without a
> stated author or copyright notice becomes public domain. Since no notice was
> included in Coleman’s publication, this renders Jessica Hill’s 1935 copyright
> of Happy Birthday to You invalid as an original composition. 
> 
> Despite this evidence, Warner Chappell continues to
> license Happy Birthday to You and threatens litigation if the proper
> fees are not paid, asserting that the copyright that they own for the song is
> legal and valid until 2030. To date, no lawsuits challenging either Warner
> Chappell’s ownership of the song or the validity of the 1935 copyright have
> been filed. 
> 
> This creates a dilemma for anyone considering using
> the song in a commercial venture. Although the melody is without a doubt in the
> public domain, its copyright having expired in 1969, the status of the lyrics
> is still in question. If it is established that Warner Chappell’s copyright is
> invalid, what happens to the millions of dollars Summy, Birch Tree, and Warner
> Chappell received on the song since 1935? Can those who paid for licenses sue
> for recovery? It will take a major court case to find out, but one thing is for
> sure: Warner Chappell will not blow out the candles on their copyright without
> a fight. 
> 
> 
> 
>> Date: Sat, 12 Dec 2009 12:52:07 -0500
>> From: dlennick at sympatico.ca
>> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
>> Subject: Re: [78-L] Happy Birthday to You
>>
>> Yippee for discographies with title indexes! I've certainly never heard of this 
>> band..Ray Nichols & His Four Towers Orchestra, BB 5921.
>>
>> dl
>>
>> Taylor Bowie wrote:
>>> Julian's post reminded me of a very cool record I have of  Happy Birthday to 
>>> You on a Buff Bluebird,  from 1934 or 35.
>>>
>>> Can't recall the band but it's either one of the studio groups (Berwick, 
>>> Peltyn) or some minor group,  and they play several choruses of the damn 
>>> thing in almost every tempo you could think of...waltz,  tango,  fox trot, 
>>> march,  rumba...great record!  Little bit of actual jazz on it,  too.
>>>
>>> Can anyone remind me who the artist is?  I'd like to dig it out and play it 
>>> and am so backwards that I just have my records alphabetical,  not on a 
>>> computer list.
>>>
>>> Taylor
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>>> From: "Julian Vein" <julianvein at blueyonder.co.uk>
>>> To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
>>> Sent: Saturday, December 12, 2009 3:07 AM
>>> Subject: Re: [78-L] The Christmas Songs
>>>
>>>
>>>> Bud Black wrote:
>>>>> In 1947 Dick Todd with Mark Warnow's orchestra and chorus, recorded "All
>>>>> Around The Christmas Tree," on the Sonora label  I remember thinking at 
>>>>> the
>>>>> time that this song would become a Christmas classic heard every year. 
>>>>> Boy,
>>>>> was I wrong!  The record was played extensively on the radio, but by the
>>>>> following year it had almost faded into obscurity.  All in all.....I 
>>>>> kinda
>>>>> liked it!
>>>>>
>>>>> Bud
>>>> =============
>>>> Oddly enough, Warnow's brother Raymond Scott recorded it in 1940. It
>>>> didn't make much of an impression on me. It was recorded November 29,
>>>> which would have made it tight for good sales before Xmas. The reverse
>>>> "Happy Birthday To You", however, could've sold at any time.
>>>>
>>>>      Julian Vein