“Happy Birthday to You”and What’s Wrong with Intellectual Property1 Law

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“Happy Birthday to You” is perhaps one of the best known songs of the past century. It’s become an almost mandatory part of any birthday celebration, and its lyrics are instantly familiar.2. mandatory: 强制的，必须的；lyric: 歌词；instantly: 立即地，瞬间地。While you’re likely to hear it during a backyard birthday party,though, there are plenty of places where you’re not going to hear it. You’re unlikely to hear it in a movie, for example, even if the scene in question3is a birthday party for a character where it would seem entirely natural. And, you’re not going to hear it much on the radio or television either.

The reason for all of this is because the song, written more than 100 years ago, is still under a copyright owned by a subsidiary of the massive Warner Brothers entertainment empire.4. copyright: 版权，著作权；subsidiary: 子公司，下属公司；Warner Brothers: 华纳兄弟娱乐公司，全球最大的电影和电视娱乐制作公司之一。Using the song in any commercial context means paying royalties5to the copyright owner, royalties that can often run into thousands of

3. in question: 正在讨论中的，上述的。

5. royalty: 版税，又称版权使用费，是知识产权的原创人或版权持有人对其他使用其知识产权的人所收取的金钱利益。dollars depending on how the song is used. Now, a filmmaker working on a documentary about the song is going to court to try to get that copyright nulli fied.6. documentary: 纪录片；go to court: 上法院，打官司；nullify: 使无效，作废。

The song “Happy Birthday to You” is widely credited for7. be credited for: 认为……有某种能力或优点。being the most performed song in the world. But one of its latest venues may be the federal courthouse in Manhattan, where the only parties may be the litigants to a new legal battle.8. venue: 发生地点，场所；Manhattan: 曼哈顿，美国纽约市的行政区之一，被认为是整个美国的经济和文化中心；litigant: 诉讼当事人。

The dispute stems from a lawsuit filed by a filmmaker in New York who is seeking to have the court declare the popular ditty to be in the public domain, and to block a music company from claiming it owns the copyright to the song and charging licensing fees for its use.9. 这一争论是由一位纽约电影导演向法院提请诉讼而引起的，她希望法院能判决让这首受人欢迎的小曲子进入公有领域，禁止某个音乐公司声称拥有这首歌的版权并据此征收歌曲的授权使用费。stem from:来源于，发生于；ditty: 小曲，小调；public domain:公有领域，指某些知识和发明属于公有文化遗产，任何人可以不受限制地使用和加工它们；block:（政府、中央银行等）限制或禁止；licensing fee: 授权费，使用费。

The filmmaker, Jennifer Nelson, was producing a documentary movie, tentatively10. tentatively: 暂时地，尝试性地。titled Happy Birthday,about the song, the lawsuit said. In one proposed scene, the song was to be performed.

But to use it in the film, she was told she would have to pay $1,500 and enter into a licensing agreement with Warner/Chappell, the publishing arm11. arm: 分部，部门。of the Warner Music Group. Ms. Nelson’s company, Good Morning to You Productions12. production: （电影、戏剧等的）摄制，制作。, paid the fee and entered into the agreement,the suit says.

“Before I began my filmmaking career,” Ms. Nelson said in an e-mail forwarded13. forward: v. 转发，转寄。by her lawyer, “I never thought the song was owned by anyone. I thought it belonged to everyone.”

庆祝生日的必唱歌曲非《祝你生日快乐》莫属；据《吉尼斯世界纪录》统计，《祝你生日快乐》是世界上传唱最多的英文歌曲。不过，你知道这首家喻户晓的歌曲是有版权的吗？自行哼唱无妨，但若用于商业用途，例如在电影中随便使用，那就要小心吃上高额侵权罚金！

The lawsuit notes that in the late 1800s, two sisters, Mildred J. Hill and Patty Smith Hill, wrote a song with the same melody14. melody: 旋律，曲调。called “Good Morning to All.” The suit tracks that song’s evolution into the familiar birthday song and its ownership over more than a century.15. track: 循着(痕迹、线索等）探索，追踪；evolution: 发展，成长。

But although Warner/Chappell claims ownership of “Happy Birthday to You,” the song was “just a public adaptation16. adaptation: 改编，改写。” of the original song, one of Ms. Nelson’s lawyers, Mark C. Rifkin, said in a phone interview.

“It’s a song created by the public, it belongs to the public, and it needs to go back to the public,” Mr. Rifkin said.

A spokesman for Warner/Chappell declined to comment on the suit.The company paid $25 million in 1988 to acquire Birchtree Ltd., a small company whose musical holdings included the birthday song.17. acquire: 取得，得到；holding: 拥有的财物。

Mr. Rifkin cited an estimate that Warner/Chappell collected approximately $2 million per year in licensing fees for the song.18. cite: 提出，举出；estimate: （对距离、价值、数目、大小、重量、费用等的）估计，估算；approximately: 大约地，近似地。He added that the suit asks that the firm should return all the fees for the song it has collected in the past four years.

The fact that a song written when Grover Cleveland was elected to his second non-consecutive term as President is generating $2,000,000 in licensing fees some 121 years after is both an amazing fact and a testament to how perverted our copyright laws have become.19. 在格罗弗·克利夫兰第二次被选为美国总统、开始其第二任非连续任期之时（1893年左右）写的一首歌曲，在121年后的今天还能收取两百万美元的授权使用费，这一事实不仅令人诧异，而且也切实地证明了我们的版权法已经扭曲到一定程度了。Grover Cleveland:格罗弗·克利夫兰（1837—1908），美国政治家，第22任和24任美国总统，是美国历史上唯一一位担任了两任非连续任期的总统；testament: 实证，证据；perverted: 堕落的，反常的。The story behind how this happened is fairly interesting:

When the Hill sisters first composed the song in 1893, it was called“Good Morning to All.” Somewhere along the line the tune evolved into the version that is currently popular.20. somewhere along the line: 在某一时刻，在某一环节；evolve: 使逐步形成，使逐渐发展。The song has traditionally been regarded as copyrighted because the lyrics appeared in a songbook in 1924 and a piano arrangement was published in 1935. As such, it would neatly fit into changes in copyright law that conferred a lengthy 95 years of protection for works created after 1923.21. 如此，它正好符合了版权法的改动——这些改动授予了1923年之后的创作作品一段漫长的95年版权保护期。confer: 授予，赋予。Had the songbook been published any earlier,there wouldn’t be any question as to whether a license fee was needed when, for example, Marilyn Monroe sang it to John F. Kennedy in 1962.

Now, the lawsuit says that in 1893, the Hill sisters sold and assigned their rights to a written manuscript that included the hit song to Clayton Summy in exchange for 10 percent of retail sales.22. assign: 把（权利、财产、头衔等）让与，转让给；manuscript: 手写本，原稿；Clayton Summy: 一家总部在芝加哥的音乐公司。That year, “Good Morning to All” is said to have been published in a songbook titledSong Stories for the Kindergarten, and a copyright application was filed the next year. In the following years,there would be more publications of this initial song and more copyright registrations.

In their lawsuit, the Plaintiffs allege that, absent the relief that they are requesting, the copyright for the song will last until at least 2030, a full 128 years after the song was first written.23. 在诉讼中，原告们声称，若没有他们这一版权申述，这首歌的版权期至少要延续到2030年，距离这首歌诞生整整128年。plaintiff: 原告，起诉人；allege: 提出，宣称；absent: 缺乏，没有；relief: 减轻，解除。此处指的是版权的解除。This is something that Congress has done on several occasions already, so that’s certainly not beyond the realm of possibility. For example,when many of the first Disney productions were released, the existing law provided for a copyright that would last for 75 years.Had that law remained in effect, those productions, and the characters associated with them, including most of Disney’s iconic characters such as Mickey Mouse, would be considered in public domain and Disney would be unable to prevent outside parties from creating their own productions.24. in effect: 在实施中，仍具有效力；Mickey Mouse: 米老鼠，一个于1928年由迪士尼工作室创作的著名卡通形象。It’s also worth noting that this birthday song is not the only one where long term copyright issues have become a legal dispute recently. There are also pending lawsuits dealing with the copyright status of Sherlock Holmes and Zorro.25. pending: 审理中的，悬而未决的；Sherlock Holmes: 夏洛克·福尔摩斯，一个由19世纪末英国侦探小说家亚瑟·柯南·道尔爵士所塑造的才华横溢的侦探角色；Zorro: 佐罗，一个由强斯顿·麦库力所创造的超级英雄角色，以蒙面来隐藏自己真实的身份。

The story of “Happy Birthday to You” is, of course, just one example of how massively screwed up our Intellectual Property laws have become.26. massively: 严重地；screw up: 搞砸了。Thanks largely to the fact that these are laws that immensely bene fit a small segment of the population that is willing to spend a lot of money to protect its interests, we have a situation where the law favors copyright and patent holders far more than it favors the public as a whole.27. 这些（知识产权）法律使一小部分人—— 一小部分愿意花费万贯家财来保护自己私利的人——极大地受益；鉴于这样的一个事实，我们不得不面对现状：法律更倾向于保护版权与专利所有者的权益，而非整体大众的权益。segment: 部分；patent holder: 专利持有方，专利持有人。