Happy Birthday Words Biography
Words for Birthday Wishes
Birthdays come around but once a year. When a special person in your life has a birthday, sometimes it can be hard to know exactly what words will make the big day special. Here are some suggested quotes and words for birthday wishes which can brighten any birthday and that you can write in a card or incorporate in a birthday toast whether the celebrant is a teenager or ninety-five.Words for Birthday Wishes
Words for birthday wishes can take many forms - they may be serious or funny. You may even wish to say happy birthday in a foreign language. Here are a bunch of great sayings and phrases you can use.SING "Happy Birthday" at a private party in America, and you probably won't be prosecuted. But if an organised group such as the Girl Scouts wants to put the song into a collection to sing around the campfire, or if a filmmaker wishes to show people singing the song in a movie, the situation is very different. They must pay hundreds of dollars in licensing fees to Warner/Chappell Music, a division of Warner Music Group that enforces a copyright for the song's composition and lyrics, or risk a lawsuit that could result in penalties of $150,000 for each violation. Warner/Chappell is said to collect $2m per year in royalties for the tune. Now a filmmaker, Jennifer Nelson, wants to make a movie, called "Happy Birthday", about the history of the song. She says she paid Warner/Chappell $1,500, under threat of litigation, for the right to include a performance of the song in her movie. She then filed a lawsuit (for which she is seeking class-action status) against the company, claiming that the rights to the song expired nearly a century ago. Why are the rights to "Happy Birthday" in dispute?
The derivation and ownership of "Happy Birthday" have long been controversial, resulting in four lawsuits in the 1930s and 1940s that failed to settle the matter. Nonetheless, Warner/Chappell and its predecessors have consistently collected fees since those suits' conclusion. A reasonably well-documented paper trail—affirmed contemporaneously and by later copyright owners—demonstrates that the song's first form was "Good Morning to All", which was published in an 1893 songbook. The book came out of work by Mildred and Patty Hill, two sisters who were pioneers in the field of early-childhood development. They spent years testing and refining a variety of songs for teaching purposes at an experimental kindergarten before finding a publisher for their collection. At the time, copyright lasted a single term of 28 years. In 1909, Congress enacted copyright reform which allowed owners to file for a renewal for another 28 years. The "Happy Birthday to You" lyrics were not part of the song in the original songbook or later editions of it, and were apparently never claimed by the sisters as their own invention. Yet in 1935, the Hills's sister Jessica, acting on behalf of Patty, the late Matilda and a family trust, licensed "Happy Birthday to You" as a combination of music and words to a music-publishing company that had created new piano arrangements. After a tortuous series of deals over the subsequent decades, the publishing rights ended up in the hands of Warner/Chappell. (Recordings have a separate set of rights and their own intricacies, and aren't at issue here.)
An academic paper from 2010 by Robert Brauneis of George Washington University's Law School, and Ms Nelson's lawsuit, document numerous deficiencies in the continuity and applicability of copyright protection using a variety of primary sources, including the Hill sisters' personal papers, Library of Congress filings and court cases. Public-domain works in Google's book scans appear to back them up. Mr Brauneis cites evidence that Mildred, the composer, derived the tune from African-American spirituals, a subject in which she later became an expert. Because originality is a requirement of copyright, that alone might be enough to deprive the music of protection. The 1893 copyright may have vested in the songbook's publisher, says Ms Nelson's suit, but that publisher failed to renew the copyright in 1921, at which point (Ms Nelson's attorneys say) it entered the public domain. Mr Brauneis, by contrast, says that Jessica Hill renewed the copyright in 1921, but had no basis to assert ownership of the "Happy Birthday" lyrics. Both the lawsuit and Mr Brauneis trace the publication of those words to other parties, in various forms, many years earlier. One of Ms Nelson's lawyers, Randy Newman (not the singer of the same name), found a reference in a January 1901 educators' journal to singing "happy birthday to you"; and the full lyrics appear in two works in 1911 and 1912—including this one—without proper copyright notice either to the Hills or any party, rendering them in the public domain at a federal level if they were the first full publication. Mr Brauneis asserts that even if some rights existed, they weren't renewed in a proper fashion in 1963 by the publishing company, which would mean all ownership would have expired by now in any case.
Another of Mr Nelson's lawyers, Mark Rifkin, explains that his client admits that the specific piano arrangements published in 1935 could retain protection (until 2030 due to American rules revised in 1976 and 1998). But that specific copyright does not include the melody and lyrics: protection of the former expired in 1921, the suit notes, and the rights to the latter never belonged to the Hills or their agents. "As its own work, there is no reliable evidence at all that it was written by anybody who claimed any authorship," says Mr Rifkin. The suit therefore hopes to claw back both Ms Nelson's $1,500 and several millions collected by Warner/Chappell since mid-2009, the extent of statutory limitations. (Mr Rifkin et al will be paid only if the suit achieves class-action status and they prevail.) Lest one feel bad about the Hill sisters or their family, they and their trusts received many tens of millions of dollars between 1893 and 2009 that cannot be reclaimed. Patty and Mildred Hill were no naifs, either. Patty Hill explained in one trial that before "Good Morning to All" was published, she and Mildred taught the song to trainee teachers, but "they were told specifically it must never appear in print", lest the Hills lose protection before fixing their work as printed music. Mildred Hill died in 1916; Patty in 1946. If today's law had applied in their time, their 1893 "Good Morning" music, at least, would retain protection in America until 70 years after Patty's death, or 2016. The evidence in Ms Nelson's birthday suit seems to suggest that the rights to the music expired either 70 or 95 years ago, while the words to "Happy Birthday to You" never belonged to the remarkable Hill sisters to begin with. Now the courts must decide once and for all.
Happy Birthday Words Happy Birthday Cake Quotes Pictures Meme Sister Funny Brother Mom to you to me Pictures
Happy Birthday Words Happy Birthday Cake Quotes Pictures Meme Sister Funny Brother Mom to you to me Pictures
Happy Birthday Words Happy Birthday Cake Quotes Pictures Meme Sister Funny Brother Mom to you to me Pictures
Happy Birthday Words Happy Birthday Cake Quotes Pictures Meme Sister Funny Brother Mom to you to me Pictures
Happy Birthday Words Happy Birthday Cake Quotes Pictures Meme Sister Funny Brother Mom to you to me Pictures
Happy Birthday Words Happy Birthday Cake Quotes Pictures Meme Sister Funny Brother Mom to you to me Pictures
Happy Birthday Words Happy Birthday Cake Quotes Pictures Meme Sister Funny Brother Mom to you to me Pictures
Happy Birthday Words Happy Birthday Cake Quotes Pictures Meme Sister Funny Brother Mom to you to me Pictures
Happy Birthday Words Happy Birthday Cake Quotes Pictures Meme Sister Funny Brother Mom to you to me Pictures
Happy Birthday Words Happy Birthday Cake Quotes Pictures Meme Sister Funny Brother Mom to you to me Pictures
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