A charity called the Association for Childhood Education International (ACEI) has now stepped forward to say that if Warner loses the copyright, it should become the rightful owner. Earlier this week, ACEI filed court papers (PDF) asking to intervene in the copyright dispute.
4 comments:
I really don't like this article and i know i wouldn't but it intrigued me for obvious reasons. For a song like this there really shouldn't be a copyright on it. A song used almost everyday for a very pure reason. Do they just want the credit on Wikipedia? the point of a copyright is so that another person or company cant make money off of your work. If they get the copyright what are they going to do? charge anyone who sings it 30 cents? It seems really silly to me to fight over something like that are pay the legal fees to win that. I don't know the songs origins but it is a medley that is ingrained into your childhood and used throughout your life. The ABC song for example is based off of twinkle twinkle little star, did they pay copyright for that? If they get the rights to it then they shouldn't do anything with it, the song belongs to everyone now and its too late to start trying to get revenue from it.
This is one of those situations where my only response really is, why If the Happy Birthday song is this companies sole income source then they need to rethink their business strategy. The two women though they may be haphazardly credited with authoring the song, never filed an official paper work stating that they had and rights to it. This company has no real interest in the ownership of the song aside from its money making possibilities, its a wonder that the song has stayed in individual hands for so long. This song has become integrated into (nearly every) culture so fully that the song is common even in household whose first language isn't English. At this point the piece should be considered public domain. It has had such loose claim for so long, its too late for any owner, "rightful" or not, to step and try and claim it.
I think we all knew that somebody would come out swinging at the recently relinquished copyright.
What is the appeal in owning the copyright to Happy Birthday? There’s no royalties to be collected. People that are going to use the song privately are going to continue to do so, and I can’t imagine there’s a heavy demand for public performance, so really, what is the point?
The next person who takes ownership of the song should just release it into the public domain and get it over with.
This is tough though. We should always be about crediting an artist for their work, but the person who wrote it (if it was even a single individual) probably never intended for it to be such a controversy.
Pagan, the never ending issue on a less than 1 minute composition. I think at this point it's not about who's actually owns the copyright or even this song should even be copyright registered or not, I thunk at thus point it's already all about benefits, power, money, taking advantages and winning on positions. Thnki about it, we've been forever talking about how much a person who owns the copyright can get from whaving this 20 second long music in his hand, he could become as rich as powerful as. Bill Gates! He could. Bullied the world and said everytime someone sing happy birthday he should get money from them because it's a copyright thing. This is purely insane and I thing this become more and more of a mess than something that is worth interseted in anymore. I am sad to hear that that is all about what people care, they take advantages of everything including people's happiness. I hope no one owns the copyright so the doctor at UPMC can still continue singing Happy Birthday to every baby born in that building because I thi that is so beautiful and touching and I think that worth calling happiness.
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