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'Happy Birthday' Case Built on Prof.'s Article
When U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer dissented from a 2003 ruling upholding a 20-year extension to U.S. copyrights, he held out the song “Happy Birthday to You” as a prime example of copyright overreach. The “Happy Birthday” copyright issued in 1935 was “still in effect and currently owned by a subsidiary of AOL Time Warner,” marveled Breyer in Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186 (2003).
That's no longer the case since a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled in September 2015 that Warner/Chappell Music does not hold a copyright to the song's lyrics, upending an 80-year licensing campaign that generated an estimated $2 million per year. See, Majar Productions LLC v. Warner/Chappell Music Inc., 2:13-cv-05164.
The victory caps a case that became a passion project for a group of lawyers. At its heart lies the research of Robert Brauneis, a former Breyer clerk turned academic who took special interest in Justice Breyer's remark about the “Happy Birthday” copyright.
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