The Travelers’ Green Book: 1963-64 International Edition. From the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division. NYPL Digital Collections
How many times have you sung “Happy Birthday” in your life? Did a representative from Warner Music show up and ask you to pay a fee? I’m guessing not. However, until the beginning of this academic year when the song was ruled to be in the public domain, if you showed characters singing “Happy Birthday” in a TV show, film, greeting card or any media that was either public or commercial, Warner Music would have vigorously asserted its right to that material and you would need to pay for something that many assumed was just “public property.” Read More