happy birthday copyright

"Happy Birthday To You," the birthday song heard around the world , is actually protected by copyright. How they manage to enforce this is beyond me a piece across the big world . Apparently the birthday song brings about $ 2 million a year in royalties from publishing rights ( which now belongs to Summy - Birchard , a company under the AOL Time Warner umbrella who paid $ 25 million for the company , which was then called birch was then changed to Summy - Birch ) .

Back to the origins though ...

The " Happy Birthday Song " story starts in Kentucky with 2 sisters called Mildred J. Hill ( born in 1859 ) , and Patty Smith Hill ( born in 1868). Another sister called Jessica also played a role , but more on that later. Patty was a professor of kindergarten (and eventually principle ) who helped found the Institute for protection of Children and Columbia in 1924, and has also created " Patty Hill Blocks ' used in schools. Mildred , the like her sister , also began as a kindergarten and Sunday school teacher , but eventually became a pianist and composer, took a very scholarly approach to music and specialized in the field of negro spirituals .

In 1893 , Mildred worked at the Louisville Experimental Kindergarten School , where his sister was also working as a principle. Mildred came up with the melody Now all associated with the Happy Birthday song , and sister Patty added the lyrics and thus was born the song " Good Morning to All " , a simple and catchy song for teachers to use to accommodate students in class daily . It read :

Hello to you,

Hello to you,

Hello , dear children,

Hello everyone .

In the same year , the song was published in the book of songs "Song Stories for the Kindergarten. The song was very popular and has undergone some small changes to the bills in time, but still based on a song congratulations to one of the teachers to students or student teachers changed .

So how does this end of the song have increased their words of salvation to a birthday song? Modified words appeared in a songbook in 1924 , although its not clear who did it first. Such as radio and cinema are becoming very popular song seemed to take a life for a while and the melody was used on more than once at the cinema in 1900.

All this came to a head when Irving Berlin musical " As Thousands Cheer " and used credit "Good Morning to All " , the melody, the third hill sister named Jessica , who administer the copyright of their sisters had a request and be able to demonstrate concrete and undeniable similarities between " Hello everyone " and " Happy Birthday to You" in a court of law that she managed to get the copyright of "Happy Birthday to You" their sisters too.

So there you have it, who would have thought that a song is designed as a simple greeting would become a worldwide phenomenon .

Here is the birthday of words we know today :

Happy Birthday to you ,

Happy Birthday to you ,

Happy birthday , dear ( insert name here)

Happy birthday to you .

The story of the happy birthday song , much more than what you thought.