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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/music-news/10674899/Happy-90th-birthday-Happy-Birthday.html
Happy 90th birthday, 'Happy Birthday'
As the English-speaking world's most famous song celebrates 90 years of publication, Alice Vincent delves into its surprisingly murky history
Ninety years ago today, the song millions of people sing around a candlelit cake was published in a songbook. Although by 1924 the recognisable melody had been sung in American primary schools for nearly three decades, the publication was to trigger almost a century of legal wranglings which would result in Happy Birthday To You being one of the most lucrative songs of all time.
Even though nobody knows who actually wrote Happy Birthday's lyrics, Warner Music contentiously owns the copyright to the song in its entirety. The media giant has therefore been earning millions from people celebrating their birthdays for a quarter of a century. Walt Disney had to pay $5,000 to use it in a parade and the royalties charge on a scene of Martin Luther King celebrating his birthday in civil rights documentary Eyes on the Prize was so high that it never made it to DVD. More recently, the makers of the 2008 documentary No Subtitles Necessary: Laszlo & Vilmos, about the Hungarian cinematographers, paid $5000 to use the music in their film.
To sing Happy Birthday in a restaurant, at a concert or public place, royalties have to be paid. The most recent exception to the rule, it would seem, is if you sing it on Mars - as Curiosity Rover did to the surface of the planet last August, a year after it landed.
So, basically, if you want to sing Happy Birthday to Happy Birthday it will cost you.
Happy 90th birthday, 'Happy Birthday'
As the English-speaking world's most famous song celebrates 90 years of publication, Alice Vincent delves into its surprisingly murky history
Ninety years ago today, the song millions of people sing around a candlelit cake was published in a songbook. Although by 1924 the recognisable melody had been sung in American primary schools for nearly three decades, the publication was to trigger almost a century of legal wranglings which would result in Happy Birthday To You being one of the most lucrative songs of all time.
Even though nobody knows who actually wrote Happy Birthday's lyrics, Warner Music contentiously owns the copyright to the song in its entirety. The media giant has therefore been earning millions from people celebrating their birthdays for a quarter of a century. Walt Disney had to pay $5,000 to use it in a parade and the royalties charge on a scene of Martin Luther King celebrating his birthday in civil rights documentary Eyes on the Prize was so high that it never made it to DVD. More recently, the makers of the 2008 documentary No Subtitles Necessary: Laszlo & Vilmos, about the Hungarian cinematographers, paid $5000 to use the music in their film.
To sing Happy Birthday in a restaurant, at a concert or public place, royalties have to be paid. The most recent exception to the rule, it would seem, is if you sing it on Mars - as Curiosity Rover did to the surface of the planet last August, a year after it landed.
So, basically, if you want to sing Happy Birthday to Happy Birthday it will cost you.
