Happy Birthday Song Loses Copyright Protection

Here's an interesting development in a specific copyright situation;  the "Happy Birthday" song.

This song was written more than a century ago, and is the most recognizable song in the English language.

The melody from the song is based on a song called "Good Morning To All" which was written in 1893.  The first time that the lyrics appeared in print with that melody was in 1912, although there were no copyright notices attached to the melody and lyrics at the time.

In 1935, a US company called Summy was able to register the copyright on the song.  For the next 63 years, they collected royalties on public performances of the song, earning the company tens of millions of dollars.

In 1998, Warner Music purchased the copyright to the song, and started collecting royalties from that point forward.  As an example of the money that they collected, the rate to include the song in a film or documentary could be around $700 USD, although this could vary significantly.

Also in 1998, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act was passed.  That had some major influence on copyright law, as anyone who has studied music copyright knows.  The Copyright Term Extension Act was somewhat contentious.  In short, it extended some copyright terms by a couple decades, although that's a gross over-simplification.

An American law professor (Robert Brauneis) did some research into Happy Birthday in the 2000's, and in 2010, he concluded that the song was probably not a legitimate copyright, even though Warner continued to enforce royalties.

In 2013, a class action lawsuit was filed against Warner to try to recover all royalties paid to Warner since 2009.  This past fall, the judge hearing the case ruled that Warner's copyright to the song was invalid for the lyrics and melody, and could only be upheld for a specific piano arrangement of the song.  Alternative arrangements would not be considered to fall within Warner's copyright claim.  However, the judge stopped short of declaring Happy Birthday to fall within the public domain.

Here's where things get interesting.  Warner announced at the start of this week that they would not contest the judge's ruling.  They also agreed proactively to a settlement of about fourteen million dollars to reimburse royalties dating back to 2009, and they also stipulated that the song should be placed in the public domain.  But why would they do this??

The answer is simple:  in return for this, they're avoiding going to trial, which would have run the risk that they could be published for having collected royalties for so many decades, in case the courts decided that the original copyright claim in 1935 was invalid.  If that had happened, Warner could have been responsible for paying much more than just fourteen million dollars.

The judge in the case will be signing off on the settlement in March, which should be mainly just a formality.  Once that happens, it will mark the close of an interesting prominent case in American music copyright law.

Here's a link to an article in the Hollywood Reporter with more information:

Warner To Pay $14 Million

I'm Jonathan Clark, known online as DJ Bolivia.  Do you want to learn more about DJ'ing and music production?  If so, visit:

djbolivia.ca/training

If you happen to enjoy techno tracks, most of my tracks are available as free downloads from this link:

djbolivia.ca/tracks

Thanks so much for visit, and for your support!  I really appreciate the fan base that I've been able to build up over the years.

Also, if you want to visit any of my other sites, here are a few links:

    YouTube:  youtube.com/djbolivia

    SoundCloud:  soundcloud.com/djbolivia

    Blogger:  djbolivia.blogspot.com

    Main Site:  www.djbolivia.ca

"Time Keeps Marching On" (Jonathan Clark)

I just finished working on a song this evening (not electronic/dance music), and I have copyrighted it and registered it with SOCAN (Society of Composers, Authors, and Music Publishers of Canada). I'm posting it here as a public record of the date and time of copyright. At the present time, I am posting only the lyrics, although I may add a professional recording at some point in the future. If any singers/artists want to cover this song, please feel free to go ahead as long as proper attribution is given so that my composer/author royalties will accrue properly.

 

Jonathan Clark – “Time Keeps Marching On”

Chords:  Repeating Am, F, C, G in verses and chorus, with G, Am, F, G in bridge.

Mood:  Melancholy.  Suggested tempo approximately 63 bpm.

Setting/Plot:  Singer (gender unknown) is thinking about someone who is presumably his partner/lover.  It becomes apparent that that person has departed, and that the singer is depressed about the situation, hoping that it will change.  The passage of time is indicated throughout the song by changing time references in the choruses, and it become apparent by the end of the song that the partner/lover is not going to return.  There is no indication throughout the song why the partner/lover has departed. Perhaps it was a quarrel, or perhaps the person fell in love with someone else.  The listener will probably be waiting throughout the song for clues to explain why the partner/lover has left, but the question will never be answered.

Plot Twist:  Perhaps a music video could provide hints or visual cues throughout the song that perhaps the lovers were in a quarrel, but at the end, suddenly reveal that the lover got into a vehicle accident while texting and driving.  A video could reveal any number of surprise endings.

Verse1:

Thoughts

Memories

What we did

You and me

Days

Without a care

All because

You were there

Chorus1:

Staying here in bed all day, I

Can’t believe you went away

Someday soon maybe you’ll come back

Time keeps marching on

Verse2:

Words

Things you said

Forever caught

In my head

Laughs

I had with you

Your easy smile

It haunts me too

Chorus2:

Saying prayers in bed all day, it’s

Been a while since you went away

Someday soon maybe you’ll come back

Yet time keeps marching on

Solo Section Here – probably just some Am chords

Bridge:

I’m not too sure, what I can do

I can’t stop thinking thoughts of you

How do I go back in time, and

Change ….          

Verse3:

Time

Keeps Marching On

It slowly ticks

From dusk ‘til dawn

Nights

Awake, alone

A lonely house

An empty home

Chorus3:

Praying here in bed all day, it’s

Been so long since you went away

I understand that you won’t be back

It’s time to get my life on track

You won’t return, I must accept

Although it hasn’t hit me yet

I never will repay your debt

And time keeps marching on

Time keeps marching on

Time keeps marching on

Works and music copyright 2014, Jonathan Clark

Registered with SOCAN (The Society of Composers, Authors, and Music Publishers of Canada), on December 14th, 2014, as Work # A1408096.  My IPI number is 547338531.

Contact the author/composer:  jonathan.scooter.clark@gmail.com

I'm Jonathan Clark, known online as DJ Bolivia.  Do you want to learn more about DJ'ing and music production?  If so, visit:

djbolivia.ca/training

If you happen to enjoy techno tracks, most of my tracks are available as free downloads from this link:

djbolivia.ca/tracks

Thanks so much for visit, and for your support!  I really appreciate the fan base that I've been able to build up over the years.

Also, if you want to visit any of my other sites, here are a few links:

    YouTube:  youtube.com/djbolivia

    SoundCloud:  soundcloud.com/djbolivia

    Blogger:  djbolivia.blogspot.com

    Main Site:  www.djbolivia.ca

The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald

"The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald" is one of Canada's most well-known folk songs of the past few decades, written and performed by Gordon Lightfoot. It was written about a cargo ship that sunk in Lake Superior on November 10th of 1975. I'm sitting here waiting for the local forestry office to open, and I was reminded of the song a few times this week, so I thought I'd write a little bit about it.

The Edmund Fitzgerald was often referred to as "Big Fitz." It was an ore carrier that sailed on Lake Superior for seventeen years before it sank, and set haul records for six of those seventeen years. Due to its size, it was also sometimes referred to as the "Titanic of the Great Lakes." How fitting.

  

Grant Williams, a financial analyst, wrote about the ship a few weeks ago in one of his newsletters. Here's what he had to say:

Big Fitz ... was the Great Lakes freighter that carried taconite from Duluth to the iron works in the then-thriving Detroit, Michigan and Toledo, Ohio.

When she was launched in 1958, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald was the largest boat on the Great Lakes. 729 feet long with a 75ft beam and a 25 foot draft, she could carry 26,000 DWT in her 33' 4”deep hold. Powered by a Coal fired Westinghouse Electric Corporation steam turbine 2 cylinder, she had a top speed of 14 knots and carried a crew of 29.

On November 9, 1975, Big Fitz was loaded with 26,116 tons of taconite iron ore pellets in Superior, Wisconsin and embarked on what would tragically turn out to be her final voyage - a routine crossing of Lake Superior, bound for a steel mill in Detroit, Michigan.

The next day, November 10th, Big Fitz found herself caught in the midst of a massive winter storm, with 35 ft waves and hurricane force winds. Captain Ernest McSorely, a 44-year veteran, made contact with the Avafor, a nearby ship, and reported that he had encountered “one of the worst seas he had ever been in”.

A couple of hours later, with Big Fitz roughly 17 miles from the relative safety of Whitefish Bay at the northeastern tip of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, another ship made contact and was told that the Titanic of The Great Lakes was holding her own. Then something strange happened ... the Fitzgerald disappeared from radar screens.

(Incidentally, Grant was comparing the Euro to the Edmund Fitzgerald).


Let's listen to the song:




Many Canadians know a lot of the lines to the song by heart. Let's look at a few of them. As with most folk tales, some are rooted in fact and some use a bit of artistic license:

With a load of iron ore, twenty-six thousand tons more than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty.

This seems to be pretty accurate, if the other comment about carrying 26,116 tons of pellets is true.

When suppertime came the old cook came on deck and said fellas it's too rough to feed ya.

Well, since there was no communication with the ship in this kind of detail, who knows what the old cook said. And incidentally, it was a "new cook" - the regular cook was sick and missed the voyage.

Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms, when they left fully loaded for Cleveland.

Not quite accurate; they were headed for Detroit at the time.

The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay, if they'd put fifteen more miles behind her.

The ship sank only seventeen miles away from the safety of Whitefish Bay.

The captain wired in he had water comin' in, and the good ship and crew was in peril.

Actually, there was no indication that there was any trouble until the ship disappeared off the radar screens.


Another reason why I was thinking about this song recently is because we were studying it in one of my music production classes at Berklee this week. The key is interesting, because it's written in B Dorian rather than A Major. Dorian keys are minor keys which sound moody and gloomy. Basically, for Dorian, you drop the third and seventh degrees of the scale by a half-tone each, so it's like a B Major but with a D natural and an A natural. It's hard to hold the intent of the key in a Dorian, so you have to use the tonic frequently (the B chord at the beginning and end of each verse), to counter the tendency to resolve to A major.

That's all for today, I'm running out of time and I've got to run because BCTS is about to open. You can learn more trivia about the song in this wikapedia article, if you're interested.

I'm Jonathan Clark, known online as DJ Bolivia.  Do you want to learn more about DJ'ing and music production?  If so, visit:

djbolivia.ca/training

If you happen to enjoy techno tracks, most of my tracks are available as free downloads from this link:

djbolivia.ca/tracks

Thanks so much for visit, and for your support!  I really appreciate the fan base that I've been able to build up over the years.

Also, if you want to visit any of my other sites, here are a few links:

    YouTube:  youtube.com/djbolivia

    SoundCloud:  soundcloud.com/djbolivia

    Blogger:  djbolivia.blogspot.com

    Main Site:  www.djbolivia.ca