so you might have heard that you can now
sing happy birthday without getting sued
by the people who are falsely claiming
to own the copyright to it or rather you
can say the lyrics of happy birthday
because that's the part they were
claiming to own
i mean the original melody with the
original lyrics good morning to all are
in the public domain so you can sing the
tune all you want
but not the unique intellectual property
that is the lyrics
happy birthday to you
happy birthday
to
you
happy birthday
dear
uh sorry what was your name yeah
statistically it's probably muhammad
happy birthday dear muhammad
happy birthday
to
you
these lyrics are protected by united
states copyright law because what
incentive would there be for lyricists
to create great work if the people who
buy the rights from the people who
bought the rights from the people who
bought their rights from them 70 years
after they're dead can't make millions
of dollars a year off people repeating
the words happy birthday to you over and
over to the tune of a public domain song
now i'm no expert in copyright law but i
am an expert in music theory and i love
any opportunity to pretend my music
degree is useful so let's talk about
three features of happy birthday that
differ from the original public domain
good morning to all song
the one everyone talks about is the
lyrics in fact the entire lawsuit was
all about who wrote the lyrics who
transferred the rights to the lyrics to
whom and who holds the rights to them
now
of course to anyone with common sense
the question is
how are such simple lyrics even
copyrightable on their own
the only difference between the public
domain and supposedly copyrighted lyrics
is a switching out of one common
greeting for another and all of a sudden
you get to claim millions in royalties
guess what justice system nobody buys
that how about before you demand respect
from the american public you have some
respect for yourself of course almost
all lyrics and poems and books are just
combinations of pre-existing words but
us math and musicians care about how
much complexity is required to turn
those common bits into a composed work
of art
someone's probably said this sentence
before it's a likely sentence but if not
does that mean that anyone who ever says
that sentence ever again has to pay me
royalties
probably not but what if i go like this
someone's probably said
someone's probably said someone's
probably said
this sentence
if i can get you to associate those
simple obvious lyrics with a relatively
more complex song maybe you'll be
tricked into thinking the lyrics alone
are worth more than they are
patty hill who wrote good morning to all
along with mildred hill in 1893
said she tested the tune on school
children using different words for
different occasions goodbye to you happy
new years to you happy christmas to you
and so forth and so on including happy
birthday to you
which is interesting because what she's
describing is an algorithm for creating
simple lyrics on any occasion take the
common greeting for that occasion to you
repeat greeting plus specific or group
name repeat
patty hill's lyric creation algorithm
could just as easily have created
happy graduation
to
you
happy graduation
to you
happy graduation
dear sophia
happy graduation
to
you
happy friday
to
you
happy friday
to
you
happy friday
dear way
happy friday
to
you
congratulations on your first period
to
you
congratulations on your first period
to you
congratulations on your first period
dear
congratulations on your first period
now there is certainly creativity in my
arrangement and performance here but the
words who thinks i should get royalties
now for anyone who uses the happy friday
lyrics and applying the algorithm to
such special occasions as puberty sounds
a bit novel but it wouldn't be
surprising if other people had sung
those exact same lyrics before it's a
good song and a good algorithm and i
fully support patty and mildred hill
getting money and credit for that work
as they and their publishers and
subsequent right soldiers did from 1893
all the way until 1949
years after patty and mildred were both
dead
no one is fooled into thinking there's
any legitimate claim to any lyrics
created by patty's out of copyright
algorithm now
is pure grade is using a broken system
to take advantage of people that don't
have the power to fight back
now this is certainly not the worst
abuse of power that exists right now but
it's something that we need to care
about because we're moving into a future
where more and more property is
intellectual property digital goods
digital media virtual lives and virtual
spaces people have the right to maintain
control over their own lives and to
protect their property so as more and
more of our property becomes
intellectual property whether our own or
others we'd better get better at keeping
exploitative companies from asserting
authority over other people's stuff
which reminds me i should probably do my
regular check to see whether youtube has
put ads on my videos at the request of
another company falsely claiming to own
my work for the third time because they
don't so much as notify me when they
decide to start monetizing and
collecting the ad money from my videos
on my youtube channel so i have to check
regularly and file counter claims and
guess who keeps the money
and people wonder why i hardly ever make
youtube videos anymore anyway enough
about the lyrics on to musical analysis
there's a couple musical changes from
the original that have always bothered
and amazed me first because i've never
heard anyone else talk about them and
second because they are a part of
whatever mysterious cultural forces take
a song and turn it into something
everyone knows
the time signature of the original good
morning to all is a simple steady 3-4
notice there are no eighth notes
so what happens when you replace a
one-syllable word like good with a
two-syllable word like happy the natural
thing in three four would be two eighth
notes like this
happy birthday
to
you
happy birthday
sorry about the lack of happy triplets
but that's not what we sing when we sing
happy birthday we make it this triplet
thing it has this happy skipping sound
which is just not in the original good
morning dear children and it's not that
the whole thing got put in 9 8 though
you certainly could do that but that
some notes get tripleted and some don't
check it out
happy birthday
to
you
happy birthday to
you
happy birthday dear
oliver not oliver happy birthday
to
you
and everyone singing knows to switch
from triplets to duplets without even
thinking about it even if they don't
know what triplets and duplicates are is
weird no one would ever sit down and
write a children's song like that but
the weirdest thing is what happens just
after you say the person's name have you
ever noticed that this simple song that
everyone knows has a time signature that
switches from 3 4 to 4 4 for just one
measure seriously check it out
happy birthday
who does that
i mean everyone does that they do it
without realizing it every single
birthday but seriously who would ever
write a song like that for children
besides no one because that extra beat
is not in the original
how did that extra beat just get added
in and remembered and sung consistently
by everyone without anyone even thinking
about it
in modern versions it's often written as
a fermata because suddenly changing a
measure to 4 4 is too weird but it's not
a formatta it's not just some pause of
indeterminate length it's exactly one
extra beat always a 4-4 measure in
perfect time added by consensus of the
entire world despite not being notated
in any arrangement of the music i've
ever seen
it's astounding we think of popular
songs as having to be simple and easy
that humans aren't smart enough to keep
track of triplets and duplets and
changing time signatures patty and
mildred hill put a lot of work into
trying to make something simple enough
for children but this song that made its
way into common use grew its own special
lumps and textures the kind of
complexity that forms when anything
artificial gets reshaped into something
lumpy enough to fit in the deep recesses
of our cultural consciousness
and it's nice to know that now we can
sing this weird lumpy thing without
getting sued into oblivion
it is a good day i think i'll call it
happy birthday day
on that note
happy happy
birthday day
to
you
happy
happy birthday
to you
hmm unlike most of youtube i don't have
a collective noun for my viewers and
we'll make one up
happy happy birthday
dear
intelligent and capable humans who take
responsibility not just where they must
but where they know it is right
happy
birthday
happy birth happy happy birthday
day
to you
and to all
a good night
you