Just for the record… I read the OP as “Do people purposely sing “Happy Birthday” off-key to avoid royalty?”… Thought it was some sort of really strange folklore. To prevent any courtly characters to barge in and start feasting on the cake or something.
Nevermind, carry on. 
The music to “Happy Birthday” is public domain. The lyrics are copyrighted. So it doesn’t matter how you sing the lyrics – you still have to pay licencing.
According to the SD article cited above, the music seems to be copyrighted, too. No?
It’s murky. It would appear that the music was public domain when the “Happy Birthday” lyrics were added to it. I do know that in the past, TV shows could play the music as long as no one sang along. However, it may be that litigation has established that the music, too, is copyrightable (though it doesn’t seem likely – the original music was not copyrighted, which made it PD by the time the “Happy Birthday” lyrics were added).
In any case, even if the tune were copyrighted, the fact that the lyrics are copyrighted ensures that you can’t change the tune and get it for free.
Anyone have any idea offhand how much the royalties are? Just out of curiosity. I find it hard to wrap my head around the fact that some productions can’t afford the extra cost which seems to me like it shouldn’t be more than $20.
I heard it somewhere that Happy Birthday is the most sung song of all time and that the copyright ran out long ago.
re: inexplicable changes to song in mid-sing: There is also the possibility that the people singing the song are actively trying to sing badly. One of the problems actors face is doing everyday things exactly the way normal people do them, and actors aren’t normal people. It takes a lot of practice to speak memorized lines while tying a tie or eating a sandwich; most of us would never give it a second thought to hold a regular conversation while doing these things, but actors have to do them while holding the exact same conversation, over and over again. It’s not easy.
Most groups of people who sing Happy Birthday do so very badly: off key, bad harmony, no sense of rhythm. Most actors have at least a little vocal training and can sing better than average. So, if you get a bunch of actors to sing Happy Birthday in the real world, it sounds great because they’re all in tune. If, however, they’re supposed to be portraying normal people in front of a camera, they have to work extra hard to make it sound not good.
According to this article, the song brings in $2 million annually to AOL Time Warner (which owns Summy-Birchard Music). Also, the copyright doesn’t expire until 2030.
Here’s Mildred Hill’s entry at ASCAP.
Also, according to [this Adobe document](www-scf.usc.edu/~dandanzh/543/ Ladies%20and%20gentlemen.doc), Time Warner paid $25 million to purchase the rights to the song in 1990.
They did a funny alternative on Futurama as well. Matt Groening pointed out on the DVD commentary of Futurama Volume One (during A Flight to Remember-the song doesn’t appear here or anywhere in the first 13 episodes-it’s a later one-but they started talking about music licensing since Fry sings the Three’s Company theme to himself in this episode) that by the year 3000, there’d probably be a new birthday song anyway. (Fry can be heard singing the old one as the new one ends.)
Not to mention the alternative used on at Wall E. Weasel’s on an episode of Groening’s other show…
“You’re the birthday, you’re the birthday, you’re the birthday boy or girl…”
(Senor Beaverotti’s tail catches fire)
No. Uhura does sing in some episodes and do a hum, vocalizing thing while dancing on the dune in ST-V.
Nichols, who played Uhura, has sung the lyrics. Look for a thread on ‘what’s the strangest record you own’ or something similar. You can also find links to the vocal stylings of Nimoy and Shatner.
Re-Op
IANA lawer, but I think halfway through the song would be too late to avoid paying royalties.
I was given SpaceBalls-The Soundtrack. I couldn't remember when in the film I Just Wanna Be Loved By You was used. As the Winnnebago with wings pulls into the truckstop diner, you hear a few seconds of the end of the song. The only lyrics included in that clip are the very last extended "by youuuuuuuu". Apparently those few seconds are enough to require royalty payments.
Changing notes is one thing. Amazon Women In The Avocado Jungle Of Death(no I am not thinking of Amazon Women On The Moon. Avacado Jungle is a spoof action film.) includes a scene where the music is clearly an attempt at Sprach Also Zarathusta(The dun......dun......Dun, DUN,DUN from 2001). Given the film's budget it makes sense that they couldn't afford royalties and changed notes until they didn't have to pay.
Change a copyrighted or trademarked thing enough and you have something that is no longer covered. Murnau tried this with Nosferatu but failed.
But what amount, either as a percentage or as a fixed length of a piece of music can be used as fair use?
Does playing any section of the piece long enough and/or distinctive enough to allow most people to recognize it require royalties?Something like:
How old are you?
How old are you?
You look like a monkey
and you smell like one too 
IIRC, it’s 8 bars.
Actually, GR didn’t need permission to write lyrics to it because the theme was commissioned by him for his show. GR basically hijacked half the royalties. Alexander Courage vowed never to work for GR again. And never did.
I don’t know if there’s a fixed legal standard or not, but it certainly doesn’t stop people from trying to get away with stealing music. Vanilla Ice tried to use a 2-bar riff from David Bowie by adding just one inconsequential note. IIRC, he got sued and lost. That’s why I keep trying to make the point that even though some of the things people do to get around copyright infringement sound foolish, it doesn’t necessarily mean that’s not what they were trying to do.
DocCathode
?? Surely Richard Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra, written in 1898, is not covered by a still-active copyright!
Does it make any difference that people usually add somebody’s name into the song?
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to Delores-Petunia, (this song was NOT designed for non-bisyllabic name!)
Happy birthday to you.
Would this affect copyright law in any way?
The song “Good Morning to You”
Good Morning to You
Good Morning to You
Good Morning Ms Johnson
Good Morning to You
That was they way we learned the song in grade school.
I doubt a full budget movie would worry about paying royalties. They do it all the time. That is why they put out soundtracks. And if they didn’t want to pay the could easily change the song to For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow or omit the singing part.
I can’t recall a movie or TV show that would have been effected if the tune was not in there.
No, they definitely worry about paying royalties. We had a unit on entertainment law in paralegal school, and we were given a copy of a sample internal memo for production of a movie. It contained pages and pages of copyright infringement concerns. The lawyers go over the script and the sets in minute detail and make recommendations for changes to avoid inadvertently placing copyrighted material into scenes.
And they also avoid it all the time. That’s why you always hear “changed” songs and see fake products or products with the names altered.
nitpick, because I loooooooooove the movie (Bill Maher’s finest work):
“Amazon Women In The Avocado Jungle Of Death(no I am not thinking of Amazon Women On The Moon”
It is Cannibal Women in the…
Yeah, and as a feministh-theory junkie, one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen.
Academic woman, as killer separatist cannibal women approach: It’s OK, I have my NOW membership ::raises card on high::