It's like owning the copyright to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. So odd. At this point, it's so engrained in the national/global culture that it's difficult to say a company owns it.
So check it. By grabbing copyright on a song they never owned, Warner has made at least 47 million dollars. Sure - $2m a year is nothing (chump change! pick it out of the couch cushions!) but now all of a sudden WB will have to give it all back. With interest. This is money they've gotten without even having to ask, really. It's just known that "Happy Birthday" is expensive, toxic poison. I work on a major network show and one fine day, live, one of our contestants busted out into a rendition of "Happy Birthday." We had to cut Warner a $150k check. It wasn't even a consideration. It's just what you do. Because, you see, copyright is monolithic. Which is why, when I applied to Fox for a license to "Are you lonesome tonight" for a film (to cover it, not to use the Elvis song - I'm not crazy) I just accepted it when they told me to pound sand. The answer wasn't "you can't afford it" the answer was "we will not have you besmirch the legacy of Elvis with your scummy low-budg horror film." Never mind that Anne Murray covered it. Never mind that the song was first published in 1926... without copyright. 'cuz see - if Warner loses this, I get to cover Elvis. For free. And Fox can fuck off. And that's just one of many cascading probabilities from having David slay Goliath on this one - the giants will come tumbling down. You'd fight it tooth and claw, too.
So I looked it up and they spent $25 million to buy the publishing house that claimed ownership, so yeah, $2 million dollars wasn't a lot 20 years ago but they spent the $25 million to get that $47 million plus and in 1996 the investment probably hadn't paid for itself. Also, they aren't part of Time Warner anymore, they're independently owned by another company now if anyone cares. I like reading about corporate structure and incest. It's like putting a giant Russian nesting doll back together.
Weird. So Warner Chappell is no longer Warner Brothers? Well, neither is Time Warner Cable so I guess that's normal-ish. And I would argue these mergers and the like are more like a metastasized tumor than a matryoshka doll.
Well, considering that the notation stating specifically that the song wasn't under copyright was smudged and is the only thing smudged it would appear that they altered the document. I wonder if there will be fines associated. They could stand to lose a lot more than 2 mil if this is the case.
It should have been public domain a long time ago, even without the smoking gun. The EFF has a good write up on copyright law and why these extensions have gotten so insane. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/07/tpp-copyright-trap-our-last-stand-against-undemocratic-international-agreements
The US is de facto one of those countries as Congress keeps extending copyrights for media corporations. Under the original copyright laws before they were amended in the 1990s Steamboat Willie, if not Mickey Mouse, would be in the public domain or entering it soon. I was talking to a friend one time about how even after society collapses, a thousand years from now there will always be Batman stories and I joked, "And Time Warner will still own the copyright." He shot back with, "Yes, by extending it in seven year increments." That's pretty much what Congress is doing for the media lobbyists.