Has Warner/Chappell Been Blatantly Lying About “Happy Birthday” Being Public Domain?

225219132_1ade3c9ea6_o

Lawyers for the filmmakers suing Warner/Chappell over “Happy Birthday” have found some very important evidence.

The filmmakers are making a documentary about the song, and have been arguing that the song should be in the public domain.<!–/*
* The backup image section of this tag has been generated for use on a
* non-SSL page. If this tag is to be placed on an SSL page, change the
*   ‘http://72.52.81.231/revive/www/delivery/…’
* to
*   ‘https://72.52.81.231/revive/www/delivery/…’
*
* This noscript section of this tag only shows image banners. There
* is no width or height in these banners, so if you want these tags to
* allocate space for the ad before it shows, you will need to add this
* information to the tag.
*
* If you do not want to deal with the intricities of the noscript
* section, delete the tag (from … to ). On
* average, the noscript tag is called from less than 1% of internet
* users.
*/–>

// <![CDATA[
var m3_u = (location.protocol==’https:’?’https://72.52.81.231/revive/www/delivery/r9.php’:’http://72.52.81.231/revive/www/delivery/r9.php’);
   var m3_r = Math.floor(Math.random()*99999999999);
   if (!document.MAX_used) document.MAX_used = ‘,’;
   document.write (“”);
// ]]>The new evidence comes straight from Warner/Chappell’s own files, reports The Hollywood Reporter. Lawyers found a blurry version of a songbook from 1927 with “Happy Birthday” lyrics.

Suspiciously, Warner/Chappell only provided these documents three weeks ago, claiming they “mistakenly” omitted them.

Lawyers then found an earlier edition of the book at the University of Pittsburgh from 1922. “Happy Birthday” was included without a copyright notice.

Warner/Chappell has been arguing that the song wasn’t published prior to a 1935 copyright registration.

 

Image by ‘Lynne Hand,’ licensed under Creative Commons 2.0 Attribution Generic (CC by 2.0).

The post Has Warner/Chappell Been Blatantly Lying About “Happy Birthday” Being Public Domain? appeared first on Digital Music News.


Source: Industry News

0 replies

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *