Judge Says Warner Chappell Doesn't Hold The Copyright On Happy Birthday (But Not That It's Public Domain)

from the well,-that's-a-pickle-then dept

Boom. And we thought the ridiculous monkey selfie story would be the big copyright story of the week, and yet not even 24 hours later, Judge George King in the central district of California ruled that Warner Chappell "does not have a valid copyright" in the song Happy Birthday. This is a case we've been following for some time -- actually since before the lawsuit was filed (in 2013) back to some research in 2008 showing that Happy Birthday was almost certainly in the public domain -- and that music publishing giant Warner Chappell was likely fraudulently making somewhere around $2 million a year claiming royalties on the song.

A couple months ago, the plaintiffs dropped something of a bombshell in the case, with more evidence that the song was definitively in the public domain. Warner tried to tap dance around this, and believe it or not, the judge actually rejected the evidence as conclusive. But it still determined, through other means, that Warner/Chappell's copyright claim is a load of bunk. One thing is important though: it did not declare the song to be in the public domain. It just said that Warner/Chappell does not have a valid copyright on it -- which technically means that the song is an orphan work. Conceivably, if the Copyright Office gets its way that might mean you'd still need to tell the Copyright Office every time you intended to use the work (this is ridiculous, but we'll discuss that below).

If you've followed the case for any amount of time, you'd know that it shows what a complete mess copyright law can be and this ruling is no exception in driving home that point. The court first notes the distinction between the melody (which was first created sometime around 1893) and the lyrics which likely came about a decade or so later, but the copyright on Happy Birthday wasn't filed until 1935. This was (sort of) okay at the time, due to the mix of common law copyright and federal copyright laws (it wasn't until the 1976 Act that the US -- mostly -- tossed out common law copyright).

The distinction between the music and the lyrics as copyrightable elements is critical in this case because both Parties agree that the Happy Birthday melody was borrowed from Good Morning and entered the public domain a long time ago. The Parties disagree only about the status of the Happy Birthday lyrics. Defendants contend, in brief, that the Hill sisters authored the lyrics to Happy Birthday around the turn of the last century, held onto the common law rights for several decades, and then transferred them to Summy Co., which published and registered them for a federal copyright in 1935. Plaintiffs challenge nearly every aspect of this narrative. They argue that the lyrics may have been written by someone else, the common law copyrights in the lyrics were lost due to general publication or abandonment before the lyrics were published, and the rights were never transferred to Summy Co

And then... the whole thing is just a mess, because no one's quite sure what was actually registered or even who gave what rights to whom. There are a whole lot of open questions.

The registration application for E51990 stated that it was an “Application for Copyright for Republished Musical Composition with New Copyright Matter.” ... In other words, E51990 was a derivative work.... The title of the musical composition was listed as “Happy Birthday to You.” ... The author of the new copyright material was “Preston Ware Orem, employed for hire by Clayton F. Summy Co.” (Id.) In one blank space, the application prompted the claimant to “[s]tate exactly on what new matter copyright is claimed . . . .” (Id.) For E51990, the response read: “Arrangement as easy piano solo, with text.” (Id.)

Defendants contend that this registration entitles them to a presumption of validity. We disagree. Even assuming that the lyrics were printed in the deposit copy for E51990, it is unclear whether those lyrics were being registered, and therefore it is unclear whether the Copyright Office determined the validity of Summy Co.’s alleged interest in the lyrics in 1935. The “new matter” that the registration purported to cover was a piano arrangement—a derivative version of another melody. Defendants argue that since the arrangement was registered “with text,” that meant that the Happy Birthday lyrics were part of the new matter being registered alongside the arrangement. But the registration clearly listed “Preston Ware Orem” as the author of the new matter. To our knowledge, no one has ever contended that Orem wrote the Happy Birthday lyrics. Defendants even admit in their pleadings that Orem did not do so.... Therefore, the registration is flawed in any event. If, as Defendants assert, the new matter being registered included the lyrics, then, contrary to the registration certificate, Mr. Orem could not have been the author of the new matter. Conversely, if Mr. Orem were the author of the new matter, then the lyrics could not have been a part of the registration.

In short, the copyright registration itself was faulty, which turns out to be something of a problem, especially under the 1909 Copyright Act, where you had to be pretty careful in your registration or a work would automatically go into the public domain. But the court's not done yet. Instead it takes a step back and asks who the hell wrote the damn song in the first place? The court notes that it's inconclusive. Patty Hill (one of the two sisters who is credited with creating the melody) claimed to have done so, but only 40 years later, which strikes the court as odd. But there's not enough evidence either way to make a final call. The court notes that determining who actually wrote the lyrics is one point that would need to go to trial, and it won't give a summary judgment on that.

Then it looks at whether or not (assuming Patty Hill did write the lyrics) Hill gave up her rights by publishing the lyrics prior to that copyright registration in 1935. The key point here is the "bombshell" revealed earlier this summer of a 1922 publication of the lyrics, supposedly with the approval of Summy Co., which the plaintiffs claim is proof of an authorized publication without a copyright notice or registration, thus thrusting the work into the public domain. The court, though, says this is not enough.

It is undisputed that, in 1922, Summy Co. did not have any rights to the Happy Birthday lyrics; Defendants claim that the rights to the lyrics were given to Summy Co., at the earliest, in 1934 and 1935. It is also not clear if Summy Co. gave the publisher of The Everyday Song Book permission to publish the Happy Birthday lyrics specifically or just permission to publish Good Morning, of which Summy Co. had been printing and selling copies on the Hill sisters’ behalf at that time. Since the publication of The Everyday Song Book would not be sufficient to entitle Plaintiffs to a directed verdict, Plaintiffs cannot satisfy their initial burden....

So, apparently the bombshell wasn't considered such a bombshell by the court.

Next question: if Patty Hill wrote the song and did not publish it before getting the copyright, did she later abandon the copyright? Here, the court kind of throws its hands in the air, saying that it's not at all clear what even constitutes abandonment under the 1909 Act. A similar debate over whether there was joint ownership of the copyright between Patty and her sister Mildred also is a dead end for the court.

Then we get to the question of whether or not Patty Hill and Jessica Hill (another of Patty and Mildred's sisters) actually transferred any rights they may have held to Summy Co. There was a lawsuit between the Hills and Summy Co back in 1942 over whether or not Summy went beyond its rights in licensing the song, but the actual agreement between the two parties has been lost to history. However, what is in that lawsuit suggests that... the Hills only transferred the melodies to Summy and not the lyrics (remember above the important difference between the two?).

First, and most importantly, an inference that the Second Agreement had something to do with the Happy Birthday lyrics is not supported by any explicit description of the agreement in either the Amended Complaint or the Answer. Both the Hill Foundation and Summy Co. described the agreement as transferring rights in “piano arrangements.”... Obviously, pianos do not sing. Thus, it is not logical to infer that rights to “piano arrangements” would include rights to any lyrics or words as well.

This turns out to be the key in all of this. The court is saying that while the Hills may have transferred the music over to Summy -- it did not transfer the lyrics. And, remember, that's what this copyright case is about. Warner Chappell's tap dancing does not impress the court. The court notes that the only way the 1940s lawsuit makes sense is if the Hills did not license the lyrics to Summy, but just the music.

... an inference that the Second Agreement covered the lyrics is unreasonable because it would be inconsistent with the underlying legal theory behind the lawsuit. If the Second Agreement had covered the Happy Birthday lyrics, that would have meant that in 1934 and 1935 Jessica explicitly granted Summy Co. the right to license the lyrics to others for public performance.... If that were the case, there would have been no reason for the Hill Foundation to accuse Summy Co. of “secretly” entering into deals behind the Hill sisters’ backs with movie and play producers, granting them permission to publically perform Happy Birthday. Moreover, there would have been no reason for Summy Co. not to point out in its Answer that it had acquired the public performance rights to the lyrics from Jessica under the Second Agreement, since that fact would have given the company a strong defense to the accusation that what they were doing was somehow a "secret" or was otherwise unlawful.

Then there's the fact that, to settle the 1942 lawsuit the Hills and Summy entered into a new agreement. Warner again claims this proves that the copyright on the lyrics belonged to Summy, but the court says no way:

This argument fails as well. Unlike the First and Second Agreement, we have a copy of the Third Agreement in the record. The Third Agreement was entered into in 1944 to resolve the Hill-Summy lawsuit.... Nowhere in the agreement is there any discussion of the Happy Birthday lyrics; nor is there any suggestion that the Hill sisters transferred their common law rights in the Happy Birthday lyrics to Summy Co.

And thus, the grand finale:

Defendants ask us to find that the Hill sisters eventually gave Summy Co. the rights in the lyrics to exploit and protect, but this assertion has no support in the record. The Hill sisters gave Summy Co. the rights to the melody, and the rights to piano arrangements based on the melody, but never any rights to the lyrics. Defendants’ speculation that the pleadings in the Hill-Summy lawsuit somehow show that the Second Agreement involved a transfer of rights in the lyrics is implausible and unreasonable. Defendants’ suggestion that the Third Agreement effected such a transfer is circular and fares no better. As far as the record is concerned, even if the Hill sisters still held common law rights by the time of the Second or Third Agreement, they did not give those rights to Summy Co.

In light of the foregoing, Defendants’ Motion is DENIED and Plaintiffs’ Motion is GRANTED as set forth above. Because Summy Co. never acquired the rights to the Happy Birthday lyrics, Defendants, as Summy Co.’s purported successors-in-interest, do not own a valid copyright in the Happy Birthday lyrics.

Note that this technically does not say that the song is in the public domain -- just that the Hills never gave the copyright to Summy and thus Sumnmy's (and now Warner/Chappell's) claim on the copyright is invalid. However, the likelihood of finding someone else with a legitimate claim to the copyright is basically nil. But, technically, this makes it an orphan work because there is at least the potential that someone could magically show up with evidence that someone else has the copyright on the lyrics. This is incredibly unlikely, so all of the people claiming that the song is now in the public domain are probably right effectively. However, technically it could very much be argued that Happy Birthday is now an orphan work, and that this highlights the insanity of orphan works in our system. Also, it's entirely possible that if the issue ever did go to trial, a court would declare the work in the public domain. But, until then...

Of course, there will be an inevitable appeal, so this is hardly over yet. But the idea that Happy Birthday is locked up by a copyright held by Warner/Chappell is likely gone like that last slice of birthday cake. It's possible that an appeals court will overturn -- but there are so many other reasons why Warner's claim is questionable that even then it's hard to see how Warner/Chappell comes out of this with a valid copyright.

Filed Under: copyright, happy birthday, lyrics, melody, orphan works, public domain
Companies: warner chappell, warner music

Warner Music's Response To Evidence Of Happy Birthday In The Public Domain: Who Really Knows Anything, Really?

from the classic-misdirection-fud dept

Earlier this week, we wrote about fairly damning new evidence that almost certainly shows that the song "Happy Birthday" is in the public domain, and not, as Warner Music's Warner/Chappell claims, still covered by a copyright that it holds (and ruthlessly enforces). The evidence was in the form of a 1922 songbook that published the music and lyrics to Happy Birthday, noting that it was via "special permission through courtesy of the Clayton F Summy Co." The Summy company is who registered the copyright in 1935, and which Warner eventually bought. Warner has long argued that there was no pre-1935 publication. As the lawyers for the plaintiffs ("Good Morning To You Productions" -- who are making a documentary film about the song) pointed out, the publishing of the song and lyrics in 1922 without a copyright notice pretty clearly establishes the song is in the public domain. Even if there were a copyright on the original songbook, it would have expired.

It seemed pretty damning, but Warner/Chappell has quickly responded by basically trying to muddy the waters with a "well, who really knows what 'special permission' really meant" line, along with lots of other FUD about how Summy wouldn't have even owned the copyright at that point in the first place. Basically, Warner is just going to claim that none of this matters for as long as it possibly can. Watch the tap dancing:

Plaintiffs instead assert that it was Summy that authorized the 1922 and 1927 publications. Plaintiffs base this on the one-line statement that The Cable Company included in The Everyday Song Book. But that statement does not say what the “Special permission” was for—was it for Good Morning to All only? Was it for that work in combination with the Happy Birthday lyrics? The statement also does not say when such permission purportedly was provided or any other facts about that would show authorization divesting the Hill Sisters’ copyright.

Let's see just how much we can confuse everyone by twisting this into knots. The longer we keep up the illusion, the longer people have to pay... so it's worth it...

Plaintiffs’ evidence does not show the consent of the copyright owner. Plaintiffs argue that, because The Cable Company’s 1922 publication contained the statement, “Special permission through courtesy of The Clayton F. Summy Co.,” the 1922 publication must have had the necessary authorization from the copyright owner to divest the common law copyright.

In 1922, however, the Clayton F. Summy Co. (“Summy”) did not own the copyright to Happy Birthday to You! Summy likewise did not own the copyright to Good Morning to All. In 1922, the copyrighted work Song Stories for the Kindergarten, which contained Good Morning to All, was in its renewal copyright term.... Jessica Hill, who had inherited part of Mildred Hill’s interest in the renewal copyright term of Song Stories for the Kindergarten, timely filed a registration for the renewal term on September 3, 1921.... There is no evidence that the Hill Sisters (Jessica or Patty) granted anyone the right to publish the Happy Birthday to You! lyrics until 1935. The evidence instead shows that Summy sought and obtained a license to publish the Happy Birthday to You! lyrics from Jessica Hill in 1935.... Summy would not have had to secure a license from Jessica Hill if it already had the rights to Happy Birthday to You! or if the work had fallen into the public domain.

This seems like a lot of complexity for the sake of complexity -- just to come up with some sort of argument for why a clearly public domain work might not be in the public domain. Now we wait for the judge's ruling on all of this...

Filed Under: copyright, happy birthday, public domain
Companies: warner chappell, warner music

YouTube's Merry Christmas: Letting Large Music Publishers Steal Money From Guy Singing Public Domain Christmas Carol

from the contentid-is-broken dept

Yet another in our ongoing series of stories concerning YouTube's broken ContentID system. While the company has still mostly remained mute over its recent policy change, which resulted in a ton of bogus ContentID claims, an even worse problem is that ContentID does serious harm to fair use and public domain videos. The latest example of this comes from Adam Manley, who recently posted a nice video about the month of December and how awesome it is. The second half of the video has him singing the famous song "Silent Night." "Silent Night" was composed in 1818. It is, without question, in the public domain. There is no question about this at all. Adam's rendition of the song is him singing it alone (so not using anyone else's recording). There is simply no question at all that what he did does not violate anyone's copyright. At all.

So, what happened? YouTube's ContentID told him that he received not one, not two, but three separate copyright claims on the video, from three of the largest music publishers in the world -- basically all of the publishing arms of the major labels. Actually, it's worse than that. Because when he first published the video, he got a notice that ContentID had found a hit from "one or more music publishing rights societies." Adam disputed it, pointing out that the work was in the public domain, and YouTube "acknowledged and dropped" the claim. The very next day, however, he got hit again, with completely bogus claims from BMG, Warner Chappell and UMPG Publishing (Universal Music's publishing arm).

Yes, not only did YouTube's ContentID hit him with an initial bogus claim, even after he disputed it with the basic logic that the song was written in 1818 and is in the public domain, YouTube came back the next day anyway and hit him with three more bogus copyright claims from three of the biggest music publishers in the world. Basically, the music publishing world, with an assist from YouTube, is making sure that Adam can't get any of the money he rightfully earned from singing a public domain song -- with those publishers stealing it instead. Adam has disputed the claims as well, and while BMG was quick to relent, the other two have not, leaving Adam in a lurch.

Adam's post is interesting. He points out that he's used YouTube to make claims against others using his own work, so he sees the value of ContentID, but his mind is changing on the overall value of the program:

As an independent content creator, it is absurd, ridiculous, and downright insulting that I can have my content de-monetized based on a completely fraudulent claim. The fact that the claims are based on an automated system doesn’t make it any better. If anything, it makes me think the automated system should not be in place. Or at the very least, it needs a major overhaul, and a lot more human eyes involved before action is taken.

Now, I’ve been on the other side of this a few times. I didn’t deal with the automated system, but I’ve had to have content taken down for infringing on my copyrights (I generally leave remixed videos alone, but I’ve had to keep an eye out for complete re-uploads of entire videos). So I do understand the point of view of the rights holders who are trying to keep hold of their content. And when I’ve been in that situation, I’ve appreciated the prompt action taken on my behalf against infringing content.

But we’re playing with people’s income, here, and I don’t think an automated system should be in charge of that. Certainly not one that apparently has public domain songs registered to it. Anything fitting that description should only be acted upon once a human eye has reviewed it. Perhaps a different category within the content ID system is needed. A category for protecting specific recordings and arrangements of public domain content, but without YouTube’s entirely too impressive ability to recognize the similarities of someone singing their own version.

This has been a major complaint against ContentID for years, and it's one of the main reasons why people are so concerned with automated determinations of potential infringement -- something the recording and movie industries have been pushing to be mandated by law in various places. This is yet another reason why the idea that it's "easy" to automatically find and deal with infringement is so technically illiterate. The false positives have very real consequences -- sometimes to the point of taking money from independent content creators like Adam, and handing it over to the major labels represented by the RIAA and NMPA.

But it's also a condemnation of ContentID itself and how YouTube handles it. If you're dealing with a work that has already been reviewed to be public domain, YouTube should make the system recognize that any future claims should at least be reviewed before being applied.

Filed Under: adam manley, content id, copyright, public domain, silent night
Companies: bmg, google, umpg, universal music publishing, warner chappell, youtube

Copyright Killbots Strike Again: Official DNC Livestream Taken Down By Just About Every Copyright Holder

from the yeah,-THIS-makes-everyone-respect-copyright-MORE dept

Here we go again. Less than 24 hours ago, content-protection bots killed a livestream of the Hugo Awards, thanks to the brief appearance of fully approved clips from an episode of Dr. Who. The whole situation was completely absurd to anyone harboring the tiniest vestige of common sense, but IP-protection software isn't built on common sense: it's built on algorithms.

This time, content protection via crawling bots have taken down another approved, perfectly legal stream. The victim this time? The Democratic National Convention's official stream, hosted at YouTube. As Wired reports, if you're looking to catch up on last night's activities, including a speech by Michelle Obama, don't bother:

The video, posted by the official YouTube account for the convention, DemConvention2012, was blocked, according to YouTube, for ostensibly infringing on the copyright of one of many possible suspects:

This video contains content from WMG, SME, Associated Press (AP), UMG, Dow Jones, New York Times Digital, The Harry Fox Agency, Inc. (HFA), Warner Chappell, UMPG Publishing and EMI Music Publishing, one or more of whom have blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.
Sorry about that.

When contacted by Wired for comment, Erica Sackin, an Obama campaign staffer who works on digital outreach, had no knowledge of the outage, asked this reporter for the url and then upon seeing the takedown, said, "I'll have to call you back."

The video has since been updated to state that "This video is private." There's probably quite a bit going on behind the scenes at the moment, but fortunately Wired snagged the complete list of claimants for future reference. Take a good, long look at that list. There's a few of the usual suspects in there, including AP, UMG and Warner, entities not known to be shy about claiming content that isn't theirs.

Now, these entities aren't directly responsible for this takedown. This is more of an automated match situation, but it still doesn't change the fact that the inherent stupidity of the action, automated or not, does absolutely nothing to lock down stray, unmonetized content and absolutely everything to highlight the ridiculous nature of copyright protection in a digital age.

If Google can work with copyright holders to produce content matching software, it seems like it might be possible to designate certain accounts or entities as "off limits" from the wandering killbots. If the stream is authorized by, I don't know, the party of the current President of the United States, maybe, just fucking maybe, everything's "above board."

Sure, defining legitimate, pre-approved accounts may prove to be as difficult as determining which content is infringing and which isn't, but this should be the sort of thing that content holders should be working toward, rather than simply moving from disaster to disaster, smugly secure in the knowledge that filthy file sharers are getting content-blocked thousands of times a day.

Nice going, huge list of content holders. Your boundless, maximalist enthusiasm is just another nail in the coffin containing what's left of copyright's reputation.

Filed Under: automated takedowns, contentid, copyright, dnc, live streaming, youtube
Companies: ap, dow jones, emi, harry fox agency, ny times, sme, umg, umpg, warner chappell, wmg

Major Labels Claim Copyright Over Public Domain Songs; YouTube Punishes Musician

from the not-cool dept

We've talked in the past about how YouTube's ContentID system fails at fair use and the public domain -- whereby it is unable to distinguish public domain material. That has resulted in ridiculous situations, often where large companies with huge catalogs end up shutting down perfectly legal content. Sometimes it's crazy stuff like taking down a video because of birds chirping in the background, but other times it can result in public domain music being pulled down.

Musician Dave Colvin appears to be dealing with the latter, as he noted in a frustrated Facebook post about how the publishing arms of the major labels keep claiming copyright on public domain cover songs that he's been recording and posting to YouTube. The end result is that, even though all of these claims are bogus, YouTube is threatening to take away his ability to monetize his account, and have already disabled it on a public domain song.

I am fed up with YouTube. Several times I have provided evidence that my video "O Little Town of Bethlehem" is a Public Domain song and each time I get an email saying the song is owned by either Warner Chappell or UMPG or Sony. Now they have disabled my being able to earn any money for the number of times the video is viewed. We are only talking about pennies but no one "owns" a Public Domain song.

They now have threatened to totally disable my account from monetizing any of my videos because of multiple "false" claims of ownership. Since there is no way to speak to a human being directly, there will never be a way to convince them of the error of their ways....Fed up!

(And just to cut this argument off before it even begins: you can absolutely make money from public domain material, you just can't stop others from doing the same thing). Again, this isn't the first time we've seen this kind of thing, and it's a situation that YouTube really needs to figure out a solution to.

Filed Under: business models, contentid, copyfraud, dave colvin, monetization, music, public domain
Companies: google, sony music, universal music, warner chappell