It's the world's most popular song, played somewhere in the world hundreds of times every the day. But you could be about to hear it a lot more often.
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Lawyers suing Warner Chappell Music over the right to use Happy Birthday To You in a documentary about the song found a key piece of evidence in documents owned by Warner itself which appears to show the existing 1935 copyright is invalid.
Warner is understood to collect an estimated US$2 million every year in royalties for the song. The director of the documentary, Jennifer Nelson, did not want to pay Warner $1500 and sued Warner for falsely claiming copyright in a case described by The New York Times as "a lawsuit for the ages".
Happy Birthday To You was written by Patty Smith Hill and MIldred Hill in 1893, but it was previously claimed the song was only registered in 1935.
Lawyers for director Nelson's Good Morning To You Productions have found the lyrics printed in a children's book in Warner's digital library dating back to 1922 - with no copyright notice.
The film's lawyers, Betsy Manifold and Mark Rifkin, will argue this means the lyrics were in the public domain therefore rendering Warner's existing copyright invalid.
If successful, that would mean the song can be published anywhere by anyone, such as advertisers and broadcasters.
