Don't Read That Book Out Loud

[AdminAssistant]

"Happy Birthday" is actually in the public domain.

Not unless things have changed recently. That's why you never hear "Happy Birthday" sung in restaurants or in tv/movies/whatever.

[crashhelmet]

Not unless things have changed recently. That's why you never hear "Happy Birthday" sung in restaurants or in tv/movies/whatever.

Too much to quote and paste in here, so just read the link from Wikipedia

[Andara Bledin]

And that, right there, is a highlight of everything that's wrong with our ever-lengthening copyright system.

^-.-^

[anakhouri]

Huh, I could have sworn it was public domain. Or maybe I translated 'should be' to 'is' in my head.

[draco664]

And that, right there, is a highlight of everything that's wrong with our ever-lengthening copyright system.

^-.-^

Here in .au, there has been a copyright court case that was covered quite thoroughly.

Who here hasn't heard the song, Down Under, by Men at Work? Quintessential Aussie Rock.

Well, in 1932, a woman working for the Girl Guides wrote a song called "Kookaburra lives in the old gum tree". Pretty famous song, and is played around the world to this day.

A <redacted> who owns Larrikin Music bought the rights to the song in the 90s, and proceeded to sue Men at Work for a gigantic slice of all the royalties of their song Down Under, because it has 11 notes that come from Kookaburra.

The court eventually ruled that Men at Work owed 5% of their royalties from the time Larrikin purchased the copyright, instead of 50% from when they first released the song.