For those of you who were worried...

[ffutures]

...it's now OK to use Happy Birthday without worrying about a DMCA takedown notice or other stupidity.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/video/2015/sep/23/happy-birthday-copyright-ruling-singer-rupa-marya-video

Comments

[pauldormer.livejournal.com]

I wonder about Igor Stravinsky.

Back before WWI, when he was composing the ballet Petrushka, he heard a barrel organ outside his office playing what he thought was a folk song. He incorporated the tune into the ballet score.

Then the man who'd actually written the tune sued for royalties, which he got.

Many years later, he wrote a Greeting Prelude for the eightieth birthday of Pierre Monteux, who'd conducted the premier of the Rite of Spring. It's a version of Happy Birthday to You. Did Stravinsky accept that part of the royalties for the piece went to the copyright holders?

Stravinsky was always worried about money, possibly because many of his early scores were copyrighted in Russia and he'd left after the revolution. When in the early sixties CBS television commissioned him to write a piece for television, they paid him $25,000. He said his commissioning rate was $1,000 a minute and the piece he produced, The Flood, lasts 25 minutes. Unfortunately, CBS had given it an hour slot.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

What did they do in the other 35 minutes?

[dsample.livejournal.com]

Commercials

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Sounds plausible.

[pauldormer.livejournal.com]

Indeed, although the story as I heard it said they filled in with profiles of the composer, the performers, maybe even a reading of the story of Noah from the bible.

But I'm sure they had a lot of ads.