Happy Birthday is in the public domain

The Happy Birthday song hasn't been in copyright for generations, and everybody knew it. That didn't stop Warner Chapell music from running a scam where they extorted "royalties" from movies and restaurants that featured the song, charging less than it would cost anyone to litigate the question.

Until, that is, a documentary about the song decided to fight the question in court.

They won.

U.S. District Judge George H. King ruled Tuesday that the copyright originally filed by the Clayton F. Summy Co. in 1935 granted only the rights to specific arrangements of the tune and not the actual song itself.

In invalidating the copyright, King ruled that Summy never acquired the rights to the song's lyrics.

Federal judge rules 'Happy Birthday' song in public domain [AP]

(Image: 53/365 - 02/22/11 - Happy Birthday, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from shardayyy's photostream)