What is the birthday song worth?
If you live in the English-speaking world – or simply watch Western Hemisphere television or film – “Happy Birthday To You” has likely been part of your life since your earliest memories. It’s repetitive, impersonal, devoid of imagination and absolutely mandatory at family gatherings.
Maybe you love it. I tend to hate it. But there’s no denying it’s one of the most ubiquitous groupings of words in the English language. So much so, it’s difficult to imagine a world where it doesn’t exist, a time when everyone at a party wasn’t simultaneously tractor-beamed into the dining room to squawk at the guest of honor in cacophony.
However, there was indeed a time when the Birthday Song did not hold such inertia over a gathering. It was – like you and me and all the fishes in the sea – created, hatched, forcibly expelled from a creative womb.
And unlike you and me, that stupid Birthday Song is worth a ton of cash.
And You Thought Those Lyrics Were Bad
“Good morning to you. Good morning to you. Good morning, dear children, good morning to all.”
Bleck. Those are the original words Mildred J. Hill and Patty Smith Hill penned back in the 19th century. I use the term “original” loosely.
Schoolteachers in Kentucky, the Hill sisters used this little ditty to greet their students each morning. The little beasts loved it so much – reportedly – they started singing it back to the teachers and the song spread. It was even published in the songbook Song Stories for the Kindergarten in 1893.
According to the online myth oracles, Snopes, no one really knows how the Happy Birthday words got added to song, but by the mid-1930s the song had been heard all over the radio, in films that featured sound and in Western Union’s first “singing telegram.”
Well, enough was enough. In 1934, a third Hill sister, Jessica, got “Good Morning to All” copyrighted and was able to argue – in court, mind you – that “Happy Birthday to You” was a knockoff, thus securing copyright to it as well.
Show Me the Money
So, does your Aunt Beatrice owe the Hill sisters back-pay for her many years of shrill tribute? No. Not unless she’s using the song commercially. And with the way she adds 14 extra verses – May the Dear Lord Bless You, How Old are You Now?, You Look Like a Monkey – that doesn’t seem likely.
However. If Aunt B wanted the heavily-flaired wait staff of Applebee’s to join in the disharmony, technically, the restaurant would owe royalties to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. Which is why restaurants like Hooters have their own annoying songs and dances designed to scar you for life.
As these stories usually go, the Hill sisters weren’t quite able to live out the rest of their lives in wealth and celebrity. Both Patty and Mildred died unmarried and childless. Their copyright was bought a bunch of times and now brings in about $2 million a year to a company under the Time Warner family. Every time you see it in a movie, on TV or in any commercial instance, Time Warner gets paid. And they’ll keep getting paid until 2030 when the copyright expires.
Bittel Me More: The Song That Never Ends
Can’t get enough of this birthday song stuff? Robert Brauneis, Associate Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Intellectual Property Law Program at the George Washington University Law School, published a 69-page research paper investigating the veracity of the “Happy Birthday to You” copyright.
The good news: “Copyright and the World’s Most Popular Song” is available for free download.
The bad news: It doesn’t contain any 10-year-old pop culture references.
Question in honor of my little sis, Holly, who has a birthday this week.
