Supposedly, Warner/Chappell owns the rights to this song, and will until 2030. They somehow make millions off of it every year, from any public performances, TV shows, and movies.
Yet for at least the last 20 years, all I’ve every heard in TV shows or movies is “For He’s (She’s) a Golly Good Fellow”, which is 300 years old and very much public domain. At the very most, some character starts singing, “Happy B…”, but then are cut off by another singing FHAGGF.
They’re recognized as owning the rights, and they get $2 million a year in royalties, according to this law professor. (He thinks the song should be in the public domain by now.) If you use music in a movie or TV show and it gets any kind of distribution, you have to clear the rights. So a lot of people use other songs, but evidently some people pay up. Although it sounds like Warner Chappell claims they are legally entitled to much, much more money than they get.
Wikipedia mentions a couple of instances where the song has been performed in full. They also specify that Warner Chappell isn’t making money from private performances, but gets money from entertainment and public use by non-family members. So if you’re putting the song in a movie, you have to pay up. And if you are, say, an executive for US Widget and you want to have all the employees sing “Happy Birthday” to the chairman at a corporate retreat, I’m thinking you have to pay for that, too.
It’s funny this should come up: I was just watching the movie Office Space, and noticed that they did actually sing “Happy Birthday” in one scene, and listed it in the credits. So clearly there is at least one movie that did decide to pay up instead of using something different.
This is why restaurants have their employees sing stupid made-up birthday songs to birthday guests. They would have to pay royalties if they sang “Happy Birthday”.
The ASCAPholes also threaten to sue places like dentists’ offices and car repair joints if someone has teh radio turned up too loud. Music provided by the establishment in a public place is deemed public performance.
ASCAP tried to get The Gap to pay for having music played in its stores, but lost the case when a court ruled that unlike a bar or restaurant, a reasonable person wouldn’t expect music as part of the experience of buying clothing (from memory - I’m a musician, and a bar I played was having to deal with ASCAP at the time).
ASCAP does indeed send undercover agents to venues, who listen for any music they hold copyrights to. These agents are ruthlessly thorough; they do things like surrepticiously sign up on performers’ email distros and check in search of ‘untapped’ venues. There are exhorbitant fines in place (on the order of $10,000 per song played) that they can threaten the venue with, after which their license sounds cheap.
The bar I mentioned above ultimately decided to have only performers who played their own compositions, or public domain songs. I play old-public domain blues, and I had a few ‘duels’ with the ASCAP rep: I would start a song that I knew contained, say, a lyric from a Led Zeppelin song. The rep would start scribbling in his notebook, only to stop when he realized I was playing a public domain song that Led Zeppelin had stolen and put into their now copyrighted work.
IMO, if ASCAP could get a ruling and figure out an enforcement mechanism to charge people for humming their songs in private, they would. I know this is GQ, but IME many people (witness the OP) are shocked to learn the extent of ASCAP’s authority, and the duration that such authority is in place (copyright lengths have been steadily increasing, in large part due to the relationship between Disney Corp. and the late Rep. Sonny Bono).
I had dinner at Cheesecake Factory last night. One group in the restaurant was there to celebrate a birthday. A group of 4 waiters brought ou a piece of cheesecake with a candle in it, one announced it was the woman’s 90th birthday. The waiters starting singing Happy Birthday and many in the restaurant joined in.
IMDb lists 11 2008 movies with “Happy Birthday” in the soundtrack credits. Assuming all of them paid something in clearances that seems a relatively steady stream:
Marley & Me
Bedtime Stories
Revolutionary Road
W.
Camino
Wanted
Baby Mama
Taken
The Eye
Cortex
First Sunday
Note that only the lyrics to “Happy Birthday to You” are under copyright. The much older music, written in 1893 and published in 1912 as “Good Morning to All”, is in the public domain.
ASCAP is going to be all over their ass now that you’ve outed them. Seeing as you’re from my neck of the woods, have you ever heard the birthday song sung by the Red Robin folks? Truly awful.
I recall an interview with the principal composer/singer behind the group Edward Bear about 10 years ago. They did the songs “Last Song” and “You Me and Mexico”. (You’d probably recognize them if you heard them) Considering they were written 20 years before, and likely played only on Solid Gold and 60’s-70’s rock stations (and maybe a few elevators) he claimed to be making a moderate living off the proceeds. You have to figure that anyone who has the rights to something fairly common has a steady stream of money coming in.