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Money changing hands has absolutely nothing to do with it.quote If you sing "Happy Birthday" to your loved one in the privacy of your own USA home without paying a fee to Warner Chappell you are breaking the copyright laws and could technically be put in jail for 5 years and/or pay a quarter of a million dollar fine ($250,000.00) plus Warner Chappell's attorney fees. Not that anybody is going to do that - it would be bad publicity for Warner. (If a business does it the jail term and penalties can be doubled.)

Giving away a song with a melody or signature lick is against the law - period. It doesn't matter if money is changing hands or not.




Not totally true Notes. Funny thing about the law court cases are as important as the actual written citation. A court ruling in a related or unrelated case may have as much bearing on the legality as the law itself. In fact it becomes part and parcel of the law. In the case of copying rented vcr tapes for home use the supreme court ruled that copyright law does NOT apply to the private home use and the owners of the copyrighted material do NOT have a basis for a claim. I would hold the same is true in the case of copyrighted music. Playing Happy Birthday in a club that doesn't pay ASCAP or BMI fees is a violation of the law. Performance of Happy Birthday in a private setting in your home is NOT. If it was there would be no use of music material at all.

The history of copyright is an important factor in understanding the law also. Copyright came about to protect writers not so writers could gain a living but so that there would be a reason for them to make a living by writing. If they couldn't make money they would find some other occupation. It was to advance the amount of all intellectual material available in the marketplace. This is the reason for the inclusion of the public domain concept. Unfortunely as time as went on the most greedy of the artistic community has changed it to where. yes the 2 chord 6 word song is protected longer than the patent on a cure for cancer.

And finally, whether one likes it or not that is the case. We are seeing more and more very smart people getting out of research because there discoveries are not being protected.

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