17 Jun Dan on “Happy Birthday” Copyright

Today, Dan appeared on Good Morning America Live! to discuss Warner’s controversial copyright.  Warner owns the copyright to the song “Happy Birthday,” essentially meaning that anytime someone sings the song, particularly publicly, they owe Warner royalties.  Dan says, “Now they are being challenged on that as to whether they validly own that copyright.  It is the most popular song in the world.  And so they’re saying that no one has challenged it and that’s the reason that this hasn’t been brought up until now because no one has actually taken the time to say, ‘Wait a sec, is this a valid copyright? Because you talk about going back to the early 1900s.  And did they just have a copyright to the piano version versus the lyrics, etc., etc.'”  Watch the segment here.