A music company is claiming it owns the rights to the most popular sung song in the world, "Happy Birthday to You," the New York Times is reporting.
Filmmaker Jennifer Nelson has filed a class action lawsuit in New York federal court to have the song declared public domain.
Nelson is making a documentary about the song and was told she had to pay $1,500 and enter a licensing agreement with Warner/Chappell of Warner Music Group to use it in the movie.
"Before I began my filmmaking career," Nelson said. "I never thought the song was owned by anyone. I thought it belonged to everyone."
The lawsuit states that the song was written by Mildred J. and Patty Smith Hill in the late 1800s and traces its ownership over more than a century.
Warner/Chappell claims that ownership was "just a public adaptation" of the original song "Good Morning to All."
Warner/Chappell paid $25 million in 1988 to take over Birchtree Ltd., which claims to own the birthday song.
"We think there's no reliable evidence at all that "Happy Birthday to You" is anything other than a public adaptation of a nursery rhyme that was written in the 1890s," lawyer for the plaintiffs, Mark Rifkin said, the New York Daily News is reporting.
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