Happy Birthday’

ou (or, more likely, your kids) may love the song “Happy Birthday to You”, but Warner/Chappell Music Inc. likely loves it more.

The company earns an estimated $2 million a year in royalties for what is arguably the most popular song of the 20th century. Only, says a company that is making a movie about the song, it doesn’t belong to the music-publishing arm of Warner Music Group.

A lawsuit seeking class-action status Thursday in U.S. District Court’s southern district of New York seeking to have the song put in the public domain, and the return of $8 million to organizations that have licensed the song.

Warner/Chappell didn’t immediately return a call requesting comment. Under the law, it has 30 days after being served with the lawsuit to respond with its own filing.

Describing the history of this song takes up 15 pages in the lawsuit, and that’s just the opening salvo.

According to the lawsuit from a company called Good Morning to You Productions Corp., Warner/Chappell claims the copyright based on piano arrangements that a predecessor company called Summy Co. III published in 1935. The plaintiffs contend that any copyright to any part of the song – if there ever was a valid one – expired no later to 1921 and that any rights Warner/Chappell owns would only apply to the specific piano arrangements published in 1935.

The lawsuit aims to spell out the song’s history, which it says go back to before 1883, when two sisters put together a manuscript with sheet music and songs for 73 songs, including one called “Good Morning to All” that is now the melody known around the world as “Happy Birthday to You”. The words and music were published in a songbook called “Song Stories for the Kindergarten”, but the lyrics to “Happy Birthday” weren’t included then or in a later version by the time the words were being sung by the public in the early 1900s.

The first time the lyrics (without music) were published was in 1911, but no authorship or copyright was attributed, according to the lawsuit. The lyrics and music were first published together in 1924. The copyright to the first edition of “Song Stories for the Kindergarten” expired on Oct. 16, 1921, which is when the lawsuit claims any copyright claim would have expired.

World Shut Your Mouth - It's My Birthday

captain is 77  ::LOL::