The Birthday Song

The tune began as a classroom greeting. By 1893 Mildred J. Hill had written the melody and her sister Patty Smith Hill the words for a song called Good Morning to All. Children sang it to start the school day. By 1911 the birthday words were in print, sung to the same tune.

In 1935 the Clayton F. Summy Co. registered copyright E51990. The registration covered a specific piano arrangement by Preston Ware Orem, not the bare song itself. Through a chain of corporate sales the claim reached Warner/Chappell, which treated the whole song as its property and charged licensing fees to use it.

Robert Brauneis, a law professor at George Washington University, went looking for the paper trail. His study estimated the song earned around two million dollars a year and argued the copyright claim was probably invalid. A class action filed in 2013, with Rupa Marya among the plaintiffs, was built on his research.

On September 22, 2015, Judge George H. King ruled that Warner/Chappell held no valid copyright in the lyrics. Summy had never shown it acquired the lyric rights from the Hill sisters. The order did not decide who owned the words, did not declare the song public domain, and did not touch the melody.

Public domain status arrived through a settlement. Warner/Chappell agreed to pay 14 million dollars back to those who had paid licensing fees, and in 2016 the court approved a deal declaring the song public domain. The most familiar song at any party was released by a payment, not a verdict.