Copyright Laws For Music Industry Include You Singing Happy Birthday!

The Happy birthday song is actually owned by the Warner Music Group (1) and generates over $2 million dollars in revenues for them.

If you want to use it commercially, it will cost you anywhere between $5,000 and $30,000 to do so and this includes, movies, recordings or special events.

If you sing it at home, it is OK as this is no longer a public performance, but the Copyright Laws For Music Industry protect it being used for any commercial intent.

It is amazing that a song which is so familiar to us and in the Guinness book of records as being the most popular song actually may cost us money if we use it.

Many restaurants sing a different version of happy birthday to their celebrating guests and now you know why. I always wondered why they didn’t use the original, but it is simply too expensive to do so.

Even the girl scouts were told they would have to pay if their visiting campers sang it on their premises to their friends.

We may think that they world has gone crazy when we cannot sing simple songs like this but they are owned by someone else and ignorance of the law is no excuse.