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Tentative deal to put "Happy Birthday" in public domain

Kevin McCoy
USA TODAY

There's a happy ending for anyone who wants to use the world-famed song "Happy Birthday."

File photo taken in 2015 shows Terrance Jackson, left, Doris Ware, second from left, and Beverly Booker, right, singing "Happy Birthday To You"  to Bernice Williams, seated, as she celebrates her 103rd birthday in the Mill City neighborhood of Dallas.

Warner Music Group and its global music publishing company agreed to relinquish their claims to the song and will offer up to $14 million in shared compensation for those who paid licensing fees to use the tune, according to a tentative settlement filed in California federal court Monday.

Ending a three-year class-action battle, Warner, its affiliates and others who claimed ownership of the song's disputed copyright agreed that if U.S. District Judge George King approves the deal they will no longer "charge any person a fee for use of the song," the filing stated.

"All parties believe the song will be in the public domain on the final settlement date," which is expected in March, the agreement added.

None of the parties in the case made any concessions or admissions. However, a court filing shows the defendants informally provided data showing that some of those represented in the class-action lawsuit had paid as much as $51 million in collective costs for use of the song.

Happy Birthday was written in 1893 by sisters Mildred and Patty Hill, who originally titled it "Good Morning to All." The tune was included in a children's music book. Defendants in the case contended the Hills left the rights to the tune, which had yet to gain the Happy Birthday lyrics,  with the sisters' publisher, Clayton Summy.

The first publication of the Happy Birthday lyrics came in a 1911 book that didn't credit any author, King wrote in a Sept. 2015 ruling. However, the book noted that the song and Good Morning to You shared the same music.

Warner and its Warner/Chappell music publishing arm contended they got the copyright via the 1988 purchase of the company that had obtained the rights from the Hills' publisher. Other intervenors in the case said they got the rights through testamentary transfers from the sisters.

But film producers and others who filed the case argued the tune should be in the public domain because the copyrights "covered only specific piano arrangements for the song, not the words and music themselves," wrote Mark Rifkin, an attorney who led the legal fight for the plaintiffs.

In his September decision, King wrote that the song copyright expired in 1949. The judge ruled the Hills publisher never acquired the rights to the Happy Birthday lyrics. As a result, Warner and other defendants "do not own a valid copyright" for the words, King wrote.

The ruling prompted months of legal negotiations that ultimately produced the settlement.

In a court filing, Rifkin wrote that his law firm will  seek a $4.62 million fee for its legal work in the case, plus up to $400,000 in reimbursement of out-of-pocket expenses.

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