BBC Radio 4 Singing happy birthday to 'Happy Birthday' 5th March 2024 100 years since it appeared as sheet music? www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0hgnl85 6 minutes only available to ~11 March 2024 The 2015 court case mentioned On September 22, 2015, federal judge George H. King ruled that the Warner/Chappell copyright claim over the lyrics was invalid. The 1935 copyright held by Warner/Chappell applied only to a specific piano arrangement of the song, not the lyrics or melody. The court held that the question of whether the 1922 and 1927 publications were authorized, thus placing the song in the public domain, presented questions of fact that would need to be resolved at trial. However, Warner/Chappell had failed to prove that it actually had ever held a copyright to the lyrics, so the court was able to grant summary judgment to the plaintiffs, thus resolving the case. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You
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