Who is holding Copyrights of the Birthday Song?
According to Wikipedia, the Happy Birthday to You song and its lyrics are free from copyright claim from any company as of now in the United States of America as well as the European Union. That simply means that no one today has the copyrights to this traditional song “Happy Birthday to You”.
TLDR; It’s not copyrighted anymore. You can download the happy birthday to you song for free and use it anywhere.
Can you sing it in Public?
Well, we don’t see any problems singing it in public as of now. This song is no longer copyrighted by any company in the world and available for free to use or sing without anyone’s permission. This is not the only famous song that has gone through so many complications, there are many other similar examples available around the world. You can even use these songs on your websites and Youtube Videos unless it is someone else’s composing because it is the song and the lyrics that are free for public use not the music of the song.
History of the Happy Birthday to You Song:
It was around the 1900s when this song first came into existence and sources show that this song was written by two sisters. They also composed this song as one of these two sisters was a composer. Today this song even exists in the Guinness Book of World Records and tops the category of most recognizable songs in the world written in the English language.
In 1988, Warner/Chappell Music company bought the company which held the copyrights to the birthday song for more than it actually cost that time. Then both companies had talked over it for a long time and then after a long hearing in the Supreme Court in the United States, copyrights of the birthday song were taken back from this company later in 2016 and now the Happy Birthday to You is available for free in the list of public domain songs.
Conclusion:
After going through many sources available online, we can say that this song is not copyrighted anymore and you feel free to use it on your websites or use the lyrics with your own composing. we hope we could clear all the doubts you had about this song’s copyright issue.
