More than 10 years ago, I launched Unhappy Birthday in a fit of copyrighteous exuberance. In the last decade, I have been interviewed on the CBC show WireTap and have received an unrelenting stream of hate mail from random strangers.
With a recently announced settlement suggesting that “Happy Birthday” is on its way into the public domain, it’s not possible for even the highest-protectionist in me to justify the continuation of the campaign in its original form. As a result, I’ve suspended the campaign while I plan my next move. Here’s the full text of the notice I posted on the Unhappy Birthday website:
Unfortunately, a series of recent legal rulings have forced us to suspend our campaign. In 2015, Time Warner’s copyright claim to “Happy Birthday” was declared invalid. In 2016, a settlement was announced that calls for a judge to officially declare that the song is in the public domain.
This is horrible news for the future of music. It is horrible news for anybody who cares that creators, their heirs, etc., are fairly remunerated when their work is performed. What incentive will there be for anybody to pen the next “Happy Birthday” knowing that less than a century after their deaths — their estates and the large multinational companies that buy their estates — might not be able to reap the financial rewards from their hard work and creativity?
We are currently planning a campaign to push for a retroactive extension of copyright law to place “Happy Birthday,” and other works, back into the private domain where they belong! We believe this is a winnable fight. After all, copyright has been retroactively extended before! Stay tuned! In the meantime, we’ll keep this page here for historical purposes.
—“Copyrighteous“ Benjamin Mako Hill (2016-02-11)