Go to this link now! Join the Bozo Parade! Before I puke on you!


(Oops. Bozo is a Registered Trademark,and is strictly enforced by its creator, Larry Harmon. He employs a clipping service in order to track down offenders and sue them! Sorry about that. Think he would be offended that I pasted Mary Beth Peter's fathead on the knockover doll??!!)

http://www.unhappybirthday.com/

If you have seen someone singing Happy Birthday in a restaurant, a park, or at a school, you should tell ASCAP so that they can arrange for a license. If you are an offender, you should apologize and offer to pay whatever is due — a nickel, a quarter, a dollar — whatever ASCAP demands.

There is an overwhelming amount of copyright infringement of Happy Birthday. Let's right the balance and tell ASCAP about every one of these violations!

There are many ways to get in contact with ASCAP:

Email
licensing@ascap.com

Mailing Address
ASCAP - New York
One Lincoln Plaza
New York, NY 10023

Phone
1-800-505-4052

It would also be a good idea to keep the song's owner — Time Warner — in the loop. Here is their contact information:

Mailing Address
Time Warner Inc.
One Time Warner Center
New York, NY 10019-8016

Phone
1-212-484-8000

If you're going to send a message, here's a sample letter. (Before sending such a letter, you should know that some restaurants, nightclubs, etc., pay for blanket ASCAP catalogue licenses that might exempt patrons from copyright liability for singing during dinner.) You'll want

to modify yours to include correct details on the infringement:

Dear ASCAP,

The copyright status of "Happy Birthday To You" and the law
related to public performances of copyrighted works have recently been
brought to my attention. I am very concerned by the public's apparent
disregard for copyright law demonstrated by rampant infringement of
"Happy Birthday To You."

It is with this in mind that I wish to bring to your attention a
recent unauthorized public performance:

-->> WHEN (e.g., December 10, 2004)
-->> WHERE (e.g., at the Vol De Nuit at 148 West 4th Street in New York)
-->> WHO (e.g., a group of patrons and the barstaff)

I hope that you are able to quickly follow up on this and to enforce
your copyright and extract the necessary royalties or licenses from
the offenders.

It is, in part, because of your lax and selective enforcement of your
copyright that most people do not realize that "Happy Birthday To You"
is even copyrighted at all.

In the event that you choose to continue selectively enforcing the
copyright in "Happy Birthday To You," for whatever reason, please
consider asking Congress to change copyright law to reflect the way that
most people view and interact with copyrighted works such as "Happy
Birthday."

Sincerely yours,
-->> YOUR NAME
-->> YOUR ADDRESS

I think each ASCAP member should be responsible for collecting this each time an infraction occurs.

Merely show you ASCAP membership card and demand $5 for a one-time performance license.

I once read somewhere that words like "kleenex" had become such a part of our culture that the company that originally coined it (is it Kimberly-Clark?) could not prevent other "facial tissue" manufacturers from using it. If that is true...why don't songs like "Happy Birthday" count as part of our cultural heritage, too? What about the national anthem? Does SOMEONE pay every time that song is performed?

I was researching some of the tortured litigation behind Monopoly.

My motivation at that point was to point out the hypocrisy of Junior Achievemnt to be pushing copyright studies and yet be holding door-to-door sales of cheesy Monopoly boards with your own community name on it.

So as you read deeper, you start getting swamped in ugly trademark litigation research. Economists these days are stark raving mad with their theories, so suffice to say, I will simplify for you, ShadowMom, and say that copyright theorits agonize over the fact that "early entrants" will monopolize a new business field to the point that their business mark itself will serve as a descriptive name. For example, think about Tivo.

Here's my comments from my article "The Brand That Rocks The Cradle."

The origins of the original game design for
Monopoly® are somewhat in colorful dispute, nonetheless,
Monopoly® has a serious, long and tangled litigation history,
landing in the Supreme Court in 1984. The current owner, Hasbro,
enjoys an 80% stranglehold on the board-game market. Much to
Hasbro’s dismay, federal Court contended that the word
“Monopoly®” has lapsed into generic usage such has befallen the
words “aspirin,” “cellophane,” “thermos,” “hoagie,” and
“escalator.” Nonetheless, Hasbro has trademarked the designs for
tokens, the cards depicting RAILROAD, COMMUNITY CHEST,
CHANCE, BOARDWALK, title designs as well as the four game
corners, and vigorously pursues legal remedies. Not a company with
which one wants to trifle.

Now Shadow Mom, to address your fine fine question. The former parameters of copyright stood the US test of time for 200 years. All that was required was that you fill out a simple PA form, enclose $6 and mail your work to the Copyright Office. This is now called "formalities," but used to be called "copyright form." We see now what a disaster it was to repeal the formalities. And certainly this chaos was not what Jefferson and the Founding Dudes intended. In economic terms it's a waste of resources or friction. because nobody can invest in a property without being able to research prior art.

If *you* read a speech, or sang a song, produced your theatrical piece, or anything you caused to be performed in public, it was understood it was "fair game," that is, "published." Simple enough, right? If you told a bunch of scientists at a convention your fabulous discovery, you're a fool. Now by those standards, thank you, Shadow Mom, your logic is exemplary. Millions of people sang the nursery rhyme, therefore, someone cannot come along and claim authorship.

I think it is entirely possible that a worse story than Happy B-day is the tortured history of Home On The Range. You should research it.

And oh yes, by the way, the same is true about the "American Gothic" painting by Grant Wood.

That was good info, Tom.

The worst part about the "happy birthday" deal is now we have to put up with staffs of restaurants clapping their hands and singing very terrible songs. I like what shadowmom had to say.

(the same ought to apply to band-aids)

Good article, Tom.
I agree with Sherm about the clapping and birthday chant that many restaurants have adopted. Horrible. So who's paying for "Happy Birthday"? The tune is still bringing in $2 million/year.

Since Happy Birthday is based on an old folk song and was "published" or in use even in it's current form LONG before anyone "legally" copyrighted it, I'll NEVER tell ASCAP a damn thing. In fact, I'd love for them to sue me for using the darn song somewhere, just so I can get the case to court and state the facts about the song to a jury.

Since our National Anthem was Published in the 1800's, it has long since been in the public domain for years.

If merely singing the song "Happy Birthday" in public can constitute copyright infringement, how do bands performing other peoples' songs at a club get away with it? Or do they have to pay someone, and how is that done? Same with DJ's, how do they pay for playing songs publically??

I'm not a musician by trade, but have always wondered about this, since I'd love to be a DJ for a club or bar. I've read lots about copyright infringement from this and other websites, but have never really gotten my question on this fully answered. Can someone please give me a summary reply?

The bar or club pays.

I remember a club owner asking us for set lists once and then saying that he paid ASCAP. George should have all the answers about bars and paying ASCAP or BMI.

On kleenex: Yes, if a trademarked term becomes a popular word used to describe a range of products made under other names, it can be declared invalid. No such condition applies to copyright. If a work becomes part of popular culture, that just means more of a potential profit for the copyright holder.

Gee I didn't know that goldenpi. Too bad because copyrights deserve that same treatment as trademarks. Then, songs like "Happy Birthday" wouldn't be wrapped around some greedy corporation's hands.

"If a work becomes part of popular culture, that just means more of a potential profit for the copyright holder."

That would be just fine with me, providing that the copyright expired after a period of time. Copyright provisions today act more to destroy culture at the expense of paying the creator rather than both paying the creator and enhancing culture at the same time. The factor that separates the two is the RIAA.

Don't Worry... I've already sent the email for all the infractions that I know about... Wait, did I remember not to CC it 1000 times with that 1MB picture attached of the proof....

Crap

If you sing happy birthday in a restaurant, you are singing it to the party that has the birthday person, not the entire restaurant. It seems to me that ASCAP fees would not apply there.

This is getting ridiculously out of hand.

We need to research and find out the day and month/year that ASCAP was founded, then on that day we need to rent some trucks with big speakers and give their corporate headquarters a friendly birthday greeting

I'll go.

When a band does a cover tune in a bar or nightclub, the club has paid ASCAP and/or BMI a blanket performance licence. That money goes into a pot that the PRO (Performing Rights Organization, meaning ASCAP or BMI) then divides among the copyright holders based on how popular/often covered the song. (ASCAP has what boils down to a guesswork method for determining what the most popular songs being covered are nationwide.)

Oddly enough, when a band plays their own song, (or covers a relatively "unknown" artists song,) the copyright holder generally gets nada from ASCAP, even when they are an ASCAP member. (You didn't think the big dogs would allow a system that is fair to ALL copyright holders did ya?)

"Copyright provisions today act more to destroy culture at the expense of paying the creator rather than both paying the creator and enhancing culture at the same time."

What's really sad is that such "paying the creator" continues long after the creator's death. And in most cases, the TRUE creator, a musician for example, isn't the copyright holder because he was REQUIRED to hand some of those over to the record label. Copyrights should automatically expire a short time after the creator's death.

They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. - Carl Sagan