But the Hills never copyrighted the “Happy birthday” version of the lyrics. The tune soon grew in popularity and started to appear more in print. How exactly that happened is unknown, but by 1924, it appeared in another songbook edited by Robert Coleman with the Hill sisters’ original lyrics as the first verse and “Happy birthday to you” as the second. Over time, the lyrics changed and the tune began to be used as a celebratory birthday song - the version that we know today. The Song Began to Morph Credit: Zane Persaud/ Unsplash They included it in a songbook, Song Stories for Kindergarten, which they published in 1893. Together, the Hill sisters wrote the song “Good Morning to All.” Three of the four lines were just that, while the third line was “Good morning, dear children.” “She was the musician and I was, if it is not using too pretentious a word, the poetess," Patty said of their process in 1934, adding that Mildred, who also taught, would perfect the melody by trying it out on her young students. While she was also a composer and performer, the elder Hill focused her musical studies on Black spirituals, often writing about the subject using the pen name “Johnan Tonsor.” Hill, born in 1859, was just as forward-thinking in the world of musicology. Instead of structured learning, she championed a more natural method of kindergarten focused on children’s instincts and creativity. This feedback is private to you and won’t be shared publicly.A Pair of Innovative Sisters Wrote the Song Credit: Liiiz/ Shutterstockīorn in Kentucky in 1868, Patty Smith Hill was known for breaking the mold when it came to early childhood education. Mark contributions as unhelpful if you find them irrelevant or not valuable to the article. ever legally obtained the rights to the “Happy Birthday To You” lyrics from whomever wrote it, the song is now considered a public work and is free for everyone to use. Rifkin, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, said the plaintiffs will pursue Warner for royalties paid since “at least” 1988, and could also ask the company to repay royalties that have been collected all the way back to 1935.įor now, because there was no evidence existed that the Summy Co. It is surprising to many that Warner has received royalties from stage productions, television shows, movies or greeting cards using the lyrics to “Happy Birthday to You,” bringing in approximately $2 million a year, according to some estimates. The plaintiff Jennifer Nelson, an independent filmmaker, made a documentary about the song in 2013 and brought the case after Warner filed a claim against a musician who recorded the song during an event in San Francisco. Copyright protection for the songbook, including lyrics and melody to “Good Morning to All,” expired in 1949, thus the melody for Happy Birthday has been in the public domain. Summy who filed for federal copyright and published it in a songbook. That same year, the sisters assigned their rights to the song to Mr. The melody of the song was actually first composed for “Good Morning to All” in 1893 by sisters Mildred and Patty Hill. the rights to the melody, and the rights to piano arrangements based on the melody, but never any rights to the lyrics.” Judge King’s 43-page decision examined the complex history of the song that goes back more than a century. rights to the lyrics.Ĭhief Judge George King wrote: “The Hill sisters gave Summy Co. District Court of the Central District of California invalidated a copyright claim to the lyrics of the song of “Happy Birthday To You.” The court held that Warner/Chapelle Music, Inc., successors of Summy Co., was not able to show that the original writers, Patty Hill and Mildred Hill, ever gave Summy Co. On September 22, 2015, a judge of the U.S.
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