Any unauthorized public performance was in violation of Warner’s §106(5) of the Copyright Act, the exclusive right to do and to authorize a performance of the copyrighted work publicly, better know as a public performance right. Because the song was registered in 1935, Warner has maintained that the copyright for the Happy Birthday song would not expire until 2030 and therefore Warner had the right to collect royalties of any public performance of the song that was authorized. The Summy Company had owned the copyright for the Happy Birthday song when it registered the song in 1935, crediting Preston Ware Orem and Mrs.

Warner came to be the owner of the copyright of the Happy Birthday song in 1988 when it purchased the Summy Company for 25 million dollars with the estimated value of the song to be only 5 million dollars. The song actually brings in roughly $2,000,000 per year to its copyright owners, Warner/Chappell Music. This is because the Happy Birthday song was still under the protection of its copyright and not available to the public domain until last year. It is puzzling to think that a song that we are so accustomed to singing at every birthday party we attended, is not available to for us to sing in the public. As a matter of fact, it was not available for any individual or group of individuals to publicly perform the song without authorization because the song was still copyrighted and was not yet in the public domain. Well, until recently Happy Birthday was not available for restaurants to sing the song publicly.

You might be wondering why restaurants go out of their way and take the time to write a birthday song for its customers when Happy Birthday exists. The songs style usually reflects the restaurants ambiance and the song typically includes the name of the restaurant within the lyrics of the song. You might have noticed that when you go out to eat for your birthday, the restaurant employees don’t sing you the traditional Happy Birthday song, but rather they sing a song of their own creation.

Chili's happy birthday song lyrics