Many restaurants such as Applebees and Shoney's have corporate-developed songs that are used instead of the birthday song. copyright act, that the 1935 registration is invalid.Ĭopyright issues and Public performances of HBTY Regardless of the fact that "Happy Birthday to You" infringed upon Good Morning to All, there is one theory that because the "Happy Birthday to You" variation was not authored by the Hills, and it was published without notice of copyright under the 1909 U. It includes the song "Good Morning to All" printed with the alternate title: "Happy Birthday to You." However, the "Happy Birthday to You" lyrics are not actually printed along the staff. The words "good morning" were substituted with "happy birthday" by others than the authors of "Good Morning to All."Īn interesting earlier songbook is Golden Book of Favorite Songs ( Chicago, 1915). Whether or not changing the words "good morning" to "happy birthday" should be protected by copyright is a different matter. Precedent (regarding works derived from public domain material, and cases comparing two similar musical works) seems to suggest that the melody used in "Happy Birthday to You" would not merit additional legal protection for one split note. The Hill family won a 1934 law suit granting them the 1935 copyright for "Happy Birthday to You," which does not affect today's public domain status of "Good Morning to All." The Broadway musical The Band Wagon used "Happy Birthday to You" in 1931. Later the "Happy Birthday to You" lyrics combined with the Hills' published melody showed up on stage. Children's Praise and Worship, edited by Andrew Byers, Bessie L. Coleman also published "Happy Birthday" in The American Hymnal in 1933. In 1924, Robert Coleman included "Good Morning to All" in a songbook with the birthday lyrics as a second verse. Neither the words nor the music of "Good Morning to All" are copyrighted under U. It credited Patty Hill for the lyrics and Mildred Hill for the music. "Good Morning to All" is printed in Song Stories for the Kindergarten, published 1893 (revised edition published 1896). Except for the splitting of the first note in the melody "Good Morning to All" to accommodate the two syllables in the word happy, melodically "Happy Birthday to You" and "Good Morning to All" are identical. One cannot use the "Happy Birthday to You" lyrics for profit without paying royalties. There is a 1935 copyright registration for "Happy Birthday to You," but "Good Morning to All" was published in 1893 and is public domain by U.S. Some versions of the song add the line "And many more" as the final lyric. You look like a monkey And you smell like one, too. Many alternate versions exist, most commonly sung as a joke, for example: Some add another phrase to the end, sung to the same tune: (then what we know as Happy Birthday is sung as the chorus) This traditional version of the song generally known is actually the chorus to the original. "Happy Birthday to You" lyrics Happy Birthday to you, "Good Morning to All" lyrics Good morning to you, One of the most famous performances of "Happy Birthday to You" was Marilyn Monroe's rendition to U.S. It is not completely certain who wrote the lyrics to "Happy Birthday to You."Īccording to the Guinness Book of World Records, "Happy Birthday to You" is among the top three most popular songs in the English language, along with " Auld Lang Syne" and " For He's a Jolly Good Fellow." It thus follows that unauthorised public performances of the song are technically illegal. The lyrics were copyrighted in 1935, 11 years before Patty's death, and the ownership has swapped hands in multi-million dollar deals ever since the copyright is currently owned by Time Warner (a subsidiary of which bought the rights in 1988) and is scheduled to expire in 2030. The verse was originally intended as a classroom greeting entitled " Good Morning to All". The melody of "Happy Birthday to You" was written by American sisters Patty and Mildred Hill in 1893 when they were school teachers in Louisville, Kentucky. Non-English speakers have translated it into other languages. " Happy Birthday to You" is an American song which is sung to celebrate the anniversary of a person's birth. Happy Birthday to You is sometimes sung when a birthday cake is brought to a party table.
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