Happy Birthday Is Now Public Domain

Broadcasters and filmmakers may finally use Happy Birthday To You without paying royalties to Warner Music. Via the Guardian:

A federal court judge in Los Angeles has declared the song Happy Birthday To You belongs in the public domain, dealing a blow to the music publishing company that has been collecting royalties from the song for decades. US district judge George H King ruled on Tuesday the copyright originally filed by the Clayton F Summy Co in 1935 applied to a specific arrangement of the song, not the tune itself. King ruled that Summy never acquired the rights to the song’s lyrics, and the defendants’ claims to the contrary were “implausible and unreasonable”. “Because Summy Co never acquired the rights to the Happy Birthday lyrics, [the] defendants, as Summy Co’s purported successors-in-interest, do not own a valid copyright in the Happy Birthday lyrics,” King wrote in a judgment posted online.