A new lawsuit being filed today aims to have “Happy Birthday” declared as belonging to the public domain. The proposed class action is brought by a film company that is working on a documentary about the “Happy Birthday” song. During the making, the producers were informed that they would need to pay a $1,500 synchronization license fee to use the song in the documentary. The producers paid for fear of being liable for up to $150,000 in penalties for copyright infringement.
But now, Good Morning to You Productions Corp. has filed a lawsuit on behalf of all those in film, television and elsewhere who are paying for rights to “Happy Birthday.” The plaintiff aims to force Warner/Chappell Music to return millions of dollars collected over the years for what the lawsuit calls “the world’s most popular song.”
Tag: mickey mouse protection act
The Navy versus the Mouse: ‘SEAL Team 6’ trademark battle.
Executive summary: several days after a Navy SEAL team excised Osama bin Laden, the Disney Corporation applied to trademark the term “SEAL Team 6,” on the grounds that there’s money in it it’s an integral and necessary part of the Disney gestalt. The Navy is… not happy about this, and is pursuing the matter because there’s money in it they wish to keep their personnel from being exploited. Now, there’s some argument whether or not Disney’s first-come, first-served tactic will prevail against the Navy’s they-actually-have-Navy-SEALs defense; but let us assume for the moment that it is in fact legal for the Mouse to keep the trademark.
But, hey! Do you know what else would be legal? Why, repealing the Mickey Mouse Protection Act*, which is currently keeping quite a lot of Disney’s material out of the public domain until at least 2019. Or just letting that act expire: I’m pretty sure that the Republic can survive having “Steamboat Willie” freely available for public use, and I’m absolutely sure that I could care less if a mega-corporation is inconvenienced by that, considering that said corporation is also willing to try to exclusively profit from everyday Americans’ deep, heartfelt respect for the sacrifices made by our armed forces.
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