The reason film and television makers avoid using the full song
is that until recently doing so would mean that they would have to
pay royalties to the purported owner of the copyright of the song,
Warner/Chappell Music. Despite the fact that anyone above the age
of 3 can pretty well bang out their own rendition, licensing it for
commercial use costs, in fact, it's estimated that the various
owners of the song have leveraged over US $50 million in royalties
since it was composed in 1912 by two Kentucky sisters.
This all seems to be changing now that a United States Court has
found that music publishing company Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
does not own the copyright of the Happy Birthday song. This marks
the end of decades of Warner/Chappell claiming millions for
licensing the song for commercial use.
