A Federal Judge Just Stunned The World By Declaring "Happy Birthday" A Public Domain Song

Have you ever noticed that when a group of people in a movie or TV show celebrates someone's birthday, they almost never sing the normal "Happy Birthday" song? They always end up singing some odd, custom-written version that might go something like, "Happy happy happy, birthday birthday birthday, happy birthday one two three four five!" Want to know why movies and TV shows do that? It's because up until an hour ago, the standard version of "Happy Birthday" that you have sung at every birthday party you've ever attended was technically treated as a copyrighted piece of music owned by a private publishing company called Warner/Chappell.

I say "up until an hour ago" because a federal judge in Los Angeles just stunned the world by rejecting the copyright claim that Warner/Chappell has staunchly fought to protect, and handsomely profit from, for decades. US District Judge George H. King ruled that Warner/Chappell does not own a valid copyright to the "Happy Birthday" lyrics, effectively blowing up one of the strangest and most lucrative copyright claims in music history.

So from this day forward, for all practical purposes, "Happy Birthday" is free for the public to sing, perform, and use without paying Warner/Chappell a dime.

This is a storyline that we have been following here at Celebrity Net Worth for a while. Partly because I happen to be a little bit obsessed with anything that involves music royalties, but also because it has always seemed absolutely laughable that a company could possibly claim to own one of the most simple and common songs in the world. How did this happen in the first place? And how does today's ruling change birthday celebrations in movies and in real life from now on?

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History Of "Happy Birthday"

The origins of "Happy Birthday" date back to 1893, when a pair of sisters named Patty and Mildred Hill co-wrote a song called "Good Morning To All." The sisters were also school teachers, and they soon introduced the song to their kindergarten class. Their students loved the song so much that Patty and Mildred decided to include it in a book they were co-writing called "Song Stories for the Kindergarten." By publishing the book with the song, melody, and lyrics, the sisters took the first and most basic step required for securing a copyright.

In reality, it's likely that at the very least, the song's melody was not an original Hill sister production. There were several songs at the time that predated "Good Morning To All" and shared a very similar tune and lyrical structure. A few examples include songs called "A Happy New Year to All," "Good Night to You All," and "Happy Greetings to All." But the Hill sisters' version is the one that gained national popularity.

At some point, kindergarten students began singing the melody whenever someone celebrated a birthday. It is generally believed that students can be credited with changing the lyrics to "Happy birthday to you," as we know it today. Over the next 30 years, "Happy Birthday" became the standard song to sing at birthday celebrations all across the United States.

Around this time, an entrepreneur named Clayton Summy purchased certain song rights from the Hill sisters for a nominal amount of money. In 1935, Summy instructed a pair of songwriters named Preston Ware Orem and Mrs. R.R. Forman to officially write and publish arrangements connected to "Happy Birthday" as we know it today. At this point, Clayton Summy formed a company called Birch Tree Group Limited to protect and exploit the copyright.

Between 1935 and the late 1980s, the Summy/Birch Tree operation worked to enforce its copyright claim on public and commercial performances of "Happy Birthday." Any time the song was performed publicly or for profit, the company argued that it was entitled to a royalty or licensing fee.

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Acquisition By Warner/Chappell

Warner/Chappell eventually acquired the rights that Birch Tree claimed to own. The company believed that the 1935 copyright registration gave it control over the "Happy Birthday" lyrics until the year 2030, which would have been 95 years after that registration.

The publishing arm, Warner/Chappell Music, later became part of the Warner Music empire backed by a group of investors led by billionaire Edgar Bronfman, Jr.

Over the next few decades, Warner/Chappell proceeded to charge anywhere from $10,000 to $25,000 for the right to use the song one time in a movie or television show. In some cases, the fees could be even higher. During the lawsuit, a Warner/Chappell representative reportedly acknowledged in court that some single-use licenses could reach "six figures."

This explains why movies and TV shows would almost never use the standard lyrics or melody. It also explains why chain restaurants frequently sing their own goofy versions of a birthday song when they crowd around your dinner table.

As crazy as it sounds, Warner's copyright claim technically made it risky for a large group of unrelated people to sing "Happy Birthday" publicly, like at an office party or restaurant, without paying a royalty. I wasn't even allowed to write out the song's full lyrics in this article!

The Most Profitable Song Of All Time

For many years, Warner/Chappell earned an estimated $2 million per year, about $5,500 per day, in royalties and licensing fees related to "Happy Birthday." Over its lifetime, "Happy Birthday" has been estimated to have generated $50-100 million in royalties. Even using the conservative $50 million estimate, that's more than enough to make "Happy Birthday" the most profitable song of all time.

The second most profitable song is Irving Berlin's "White Christmas," from 1940, which has generated $36 million in royalties.

And this was not just some theoretical burden on giant studios. Two of the filmmaker plaintiffs in the lawsuit reportedly paid $1,500 and $3,000 for licenses. Steve James, director of the classic 1994 documentary "Hoop Dreams," reportedly paid Warner $5,000 to use "Happy Birthday" for just nine seconds in his film.

There was also an interesting twist in where some of the money went. A portion of the licensing income reportedly flowed to a Hill family-designated charity, the Association for Childhood Education International. The charity's 2012 tax return reportedly showed more than $750,000 in royalties from the song.

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Challenging The Copyright

Over the last 25 years, there have been many challenges to Warner/Chappell's copyright claim. And for a long time, every single challenge was beaten down by Warner/Chappell's high-powered attorneys, who were charged with doing whatever was required to protect the golden goose.

In June 2013, a New York filmmaker named Jennifer Nelson filed a lawsuit claiming that Warner/Chappell's copyright was 100% invalid and that "Happy Birthday" belonged to everyone for free. Jennifer was making a documentary about the history of the song when Warner demanded that she pay a $1,500 license fee. Instead of simply paying and moving on, she sued.

Jennifer and the other plaintiffs argued that the song had entered the public domain decades earlier, perhaps as early as 1920. They also argued that Warner's paper trail did not prove what the company claimed it proved.

And guess what just happened…

A federal judge overseeing the case in Los Angeles stunned the world by AGREEING with Ms. Nelson and the other plaintiffs.

What The Judge Actually Ruled

The key issue was not whether Warner/Chappell owned some dusty old copyright registration from 1935. The key issue was what that registration actually covered.

Judge King ruled that the 1935 copyright did not give Warner/Chappell ownership of the "Happy Birthday" song itself. Instead, it covered specific piano arrangements of the music. That is a massive distinction.

The melody to "Happy Birthday," originally based on "Good Morning To All," had already been treated as public domain for decades. Warner's remaining claim was centered on the lyrics. But according to today's ruling, there was no evidence that Clayton Summy's company ever legally obtained the rights to those lyrics from whoever wrote them.

The judge also noted that it is not even entirely clear who wrote the "Happy Birthday" lyrics in the first place. The Hill sisters may have written them, or the lyrics may have emerged more organically as children and families adapted "Good Morning To All" into a birthday song. Either way, the court found that Warner/Chappell's chain of ownership failed.

That means Warner/Chappell cannot keep charging filmmakers, TV producers, playwrights, greeting card companies, restaurants, and everyone else for the right to use the song.

So Is "Happy Birthday" Finally Free?

For all practical purposes, yes.

There may still be some legal cleanup ahead. Technically, the judge's ruling rejected Warner/Chappell's ownership claim rather than conducting a worldwide coronation ceremony for "Happy Birthday" as a public-domain song. Conceivably, some unknown party could try to step forward and claim rights to the lyrics. But after more than a century of tangled history, and after today's devastating ruling against Warner/Chappell, that seems like a very tall mountain to climb.

For now, this decision effectively ends Warner/Chappell's long-running royalty machine and places "Happy Birthday" where most normal people probably assumed it had been all along: in the hands of the public.

Woo hoo! We should all go out and celebrate this decision. If only there was some song that we could sing to mark a celebratory occasion…