Hay !
The melody of "Happy Birthday to You" comes from the song "Good Morning to All". Which was written and composed by American sisters Patty Hill and Mildred J. Hill in 1893. They were both kindergarten school teachers in Louisville, Kentucky.The sisters created "Good Morning to All" as a song that would be easy to sing by young children. The combination of melody and lyrics in "Happy Birthday to You" first appeared in print in 1912 and probably existed even earlier. None of these early appearances included credits or copyright notices. The actual U.S. copyright status of "Happy Birthday to You" began to draw more attention with the passage of the Copyright Term Extension Act in 1998. When the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Act in Eldred v. Ashcroft in 2003, Associate Justice Stephen Breyer specifically mentioned "Happy Birthday to You" in his dissenting opinion. But a few days later Professor Robert Brauneis went so far as to conclude "It is doubtful that 'Happy Birthday to You', the famous offspring of 'Good Morning to All', is really still under copyright", in his heavily researched 2008 paper. It would be a matter of surprising to hear copyright issue on this .......... What do you think dear?
References:
1. Available at:
http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Happy_Birthday_to_You2. A.S. Byatt, “The Song of Songs” in Jamie Byng (ed.), Revelations (New York: 2005), p.157 Available at: customer.service@westlaw.co.uk
3. Efficacy of Copyrights Protection Regime in Bangladesh . P- 39 (An Unpublished thesis paper of Department of Sociology.DU)
