Charity Pops Up Claiming That It Holds The Copyright On Happy Birthday
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It ain't over yet, folks. While many in the press went on and on back in September that the song "Happy Birthday" had been declared in the "public domain," as we pointed out, that's not what the judge said. He only said that the Summy Co. did not hold the copyright, because it seemed clear from a lawsuit back in the 1940s that the Hill Sisters (who sorta wrote the song -- long story) only assigned the rights to the music and not the lyrics -- and everyone agrees the music is now in the public domain. As we pointed out, this actually made the song an "orphan work", which created a new kind of mess, and as we noted, it was entirely possible that a third party could now make a claim to holding the copyright -- though we thought it was unlikely.
Oh, how naive of us.
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