The song “Happy Birthday” is only the tip of the iceberg on how broken and archaic America’s copyright/trademark law is. There’s a really good piece on its history from On The Media here. How much Warner Music demands must be pretty cost prohibitive now. When I was a kid, restaurant staffs singing it was no big deal. Today I hear all these weird alternatives at Outback, TGIFridays, etc. The Time Warner empire extorts an estimated two million dollars a year for a song that couldn’t possibly be copyrighted past 1921 based upon the law.
Documentary film maker Jennifer Nelson is taking on the media barony because the other media baronies just pass the “cost of doing business” on to their customers. Despite the mountain of evidence proving Time Warner’s claim is bullshit, it will be a David v. Goliath fight thanks to the cost of litigation; the source of power behind patent trolls and Scientology.
Next up will be ending the ridiculous extensions being granted to Disney and the pharmaceutical industry. As one critic once pointed out, we have too much ownership in the West.