The title’s pretty self-explanatory, but to give you an idea what I’m talking about, I’ve noticed that movies and TV shows will occasionally feature the “Birthday Song”, but the people singing it will inexplicably change keys in the middle. What I’m talking about goes beyond simple off-key singing like you would expect to hear from musically-untrained folks at a party, but sounds as if everyone just suddenly decided to shift into a new key for no particular reason. I’ve heard this happen a few times, and it always bugged me, because the effect is so jarring. I always assumed it was just supposed to sound “bad” or comical.
But then another possibility recently struck me. As I’m sure many of you know, the Birthday Song is copyrighted, and requires a licensing fee to use. So I was wondering if this was perhaps an attempt to “alter” the song in order to get out of paying for it. I think I remember hearing that court cases often come down to a note-by-note analysis of the song to determine if it is indeed the same song, and one hears “disguised” songs all the time, where it sounds very similar to the real song, but key notes are altered. And if you switch keys in the middle, then the notes of course wouldn’t be the same as the original song, even though you haven’t really changed the melody.
Does anyone know if this is the case? Any entertainment lawyers out there have the inside scoop? And please, I’m not really asking for a debate as to whether this is a valid legal strategy; I’m just curious if producers are trying to use it as a copyright dodge.
I should add one thing just to be clear - I’m not talking about when they change the tune altogether, which is very common (like singing it to the tune of “Battle Hymn of the Republic”). I’m talking about when they use the actual copyrighted melody, but all of a sudden go into a different key.
IANAL, but I am a musician. Song copyrights cover the song no matter what key it’s in. The melody is not determined by the exact pitches that are sung (if that were the case, one could escape royalty payments by simply singing sharp or flat by a few cents), melody is more determined by rhythm and the relationships between and among the notes.
Since changing keys is not at all uncommon in the performance of any song, I can’t imagine that it would even be considered as a way to avoid royalties.
Changing key doesn’t make any difference to the status of the tune’s royalties.
What you’re probably talking about is not a key change, but some of those singing switching to harmonies. They often do this on TV and films because many there will have had professional singing training and they are showing off.
But if you change keys in the middle of the tune, you have changed the intervalic structure of the tune. I know it seems ludicrous that such superficial changes would carry any legal weight, but the fact is that it’s done all the time. I’ve heard countless renditions of tunes like the “Jeapordy” theme, “Rocky”, “Beverly Hills Cop”, etc. that any reasonable person would recognize, but which were cleverly altered so as not to contain the exact same notes as the original. That’s why I’m wondering if the same type of thing is being done with the Birthday Song. Again, I’m not asking for a legal analysis; I’m asking if anyone knows the actual story here.
And Futile, thanks for your idea, but I am talking about a key change; not just a song in a different key, but the singers suddenly switching to a new key in the middle. I’m a professional musician and I know the difference between harmony and key, so you can take my description of what I heard as accurate.
Key changes usually happen in logical place within a song, at the least, between phrases. Such an alteration would not render the melody unrecognizable.
I wonder if what you’re hearing is an actual alteration of the tune. I will expose my geekiness with the following example:
The theme from the animated Star Trek series (.au file): Star Trek TAS Theme
The animated series theme sounds vaguely familiar. It sounds to me as almost an inversion of the original series’ theme. Yet it is a different melody. Could this be what they’ve done the to Birthday song? Maybe even with the same, or similar lyrics?
Or, maybe, they actually got permission and paid royalties to use the real thing?
Well, the easy answer is the next time you see a movie where people engage in this musical activity, stick around for the closing credits and see if “Happy Birthday” is credited at the end or not…
I don’t think it has anything to do with copyrights. It has to do with the vocal range of the song being large enough that lots of people who can’t really sing very well will start off and after getting about this far:
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you…
…they realize they can’t make the top note in the third “birthday” and so they just start singing in a much lower key.
Yeah, it sounds like shit. And yeah, I’ve heard it done in movies and etc., I guess trying to sound ‘realistic’. I’ve certainly heard it in real life in offices and in people’s homes and such.
IIRC, the music itself is an old tune that the writers of The Birthday Song used to teach (or was it sing) in elementary school called “Good Morning”, or something like that. They wrote new lyrics, and VIOLA!.
So, I’m pretty sure it’s the lyrics that are copyrighted, the tune is in public domain.
But the lyrics are so basic - perhaps they aren’t copyrighted. I mean if someone had a song which repeated “I Love You” a few times surely they couldn’t copyright that.
It’s funny you brought up the “Star Trek” theme. Did you know it has lyrics?
It seems that whoever wrote the melody gave it to Gene Roddenberry for submission. GR liked it, and did whatever legalese to make it official. Along the way, GR got permission to write lyrics to the melody.
So now, whenever it’s played, the songwriter only gets half the royalties. The other half goes (went) to GR as the lyricist, even though the lyrics were never performed for a production of “Star Trek”!
And oh yeah, the Hill sisters are still collecting royalties from beyond the grave, although to be fair the money now goes to Summy-Birchard Music and the Hill Foundation (and I used to work for Harry Fox! Cool place).
I remember in the CLERKS animated series DVD (rush out and buy it right now, it’s that good!) Kevin Smith laughing about a birthday scene where they had everybody singing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” to Dante becaue they couldn’t afford the rights to “Happy Birthday”.
Poor schmuck. And Caitlin Bree was cheating on him in the kitchen with a painter. Later, two painters.
I think this may be due to faulty memory. How about an example? Especially from a movie? You say you’ve also heard countless examples of certain other songs. Were these examples from films you can name?
