I’ve my birthday coming soon so I thought I’d dedicate this post to one of the most famous, if not ‘The’ most famous, birthday songs on the planet – “Happy Birthday To You”.
I bet many people playing and singing these few well-recognized 8 notes to congratulate their loved one rarely took time to think that there was a big company behind them, a company that earned huge sums of money annually on it. Happy Birthday was perceived a ‘people’s song’ already, it seen belong to everyone. But until recently, it wasn’t actually like that. The Warner/Chappell publishing company was charging for the song since 1988 after it bought the successor of the Summy Co. that, in its turn, held the copyright to the song previously given to it by the Hill sisters – Patty and Mildred – who wrote it. Yeah, a chain that long. The original lyrics were meant to greet the kids at the kindergarten and sounded like ‘Good Morning, Dear Children, Good Morning To You’ – this song was published by the Hill sisters as part of the book “Song Stories for the Kindergarten”. That’s when the Hills assigned the copyrights to the above mentioned Summy Co.
The 80-years story behind the song is actually very complex; it dates to as far as 1893 and it’s already hard to track all the copyright twists.
Let’s leave that apart and savor the main news – in September 2015, the court has finally decided to free the Good-Morning/Happy-birthday song from any copyrights. It means that anyone – musicians, filmmakers, artists, etc. – can use it publicly without the fear of having to pay a huge sum for it.
Within this short period since the Happy Birthday song was freed there have appeared lots of music arrangements celebrating the opportunity to create own versions of the century’s birthday symbol. Happy Birthday on guitar, cello, trumpet, oboe, in a jazzy style or in a classical manner - looks like many musicians have been anticipating the moment!
I bet many people playing and singing these few well-recognized 8 notes to congratulate their loved one rarely took time to think that there was a big company behind them, a company that earned huge sums of money annually on it. Happy Birthday was perceived a ‘people’s song’ already, it seen belong to everyone. But until recently, it wasn’t actually like that. The Warner/Chappell publishing company was charging for the song since 1988 after it bought the successor of the Summy Co. that, in its turn, held the copyright to the song previously given to it by the Hill sisters – Patty and Mildred – who wrote it. Yeah, a chain that long. The original lyrics were meant to greet the kids at the kindergarten and sounded like ‘Good Morning, Dear Children, Good Morning To You’ – this song was published by the Hill sisters as part of the book “Song Stories for the Kindergarten”. That’s when the Hills assigned the copyrights to the above mentioned Summy Co.
The 80-years story behind the song is actually very complex; it dates to as far as 1893 and it’s already hard to track all the copyright twists.
Let’s leave that apart and savor the main news – in September 2015, the court has finally decided to free the Good-Morning/Happy-birthday song from any copyrights. It means that anyone – musicians, filmmakers, artists, etc. – can use it publicly without the fear of having to pay a huge sum for it.
Within this short period since the Happy Birthday song was freed there have appeared lots of music arrangements celebrating the opportunity to create own versions of the century’s birthday symbol. Happy Birthday on guitar, cello, trumpet, oboe, in a jazzy style or in a classical manner - looks like many musicians have been anticipating the moment!
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