Today's interesting fact: The song "Happy Birthday To You", which we undoubtedly all know, falls under a copyright of Warner-Chappelle, part of the AOL Time Warner media group. If you are making a film, documentary, movie, etc... and wish to include the song in a scene, you must pay $10,000 in royalties to ASCAP. Have you ever wondered why when you go to a restaurant and tell them that it's your dates birthday, they pop off with some bizarre take on the song? You know what I'm talking about. The song all too often involves not only unfamiliar lyrics, but a great deal of hand clapping, embarassed teenaged servers, a cupcake with a candle and a hasty exit on the songs completion.

Here you will find Warner's Music Publishing and Licensing section. And here you will find the lyrics, printed "legally", again on the Warner's Music Publishing and Licensing website. I emphasize "legally" because, if I'm not mistaken, technically one must pay a royalty to transcribe lyrics on the internet, because doing so without paying would constitute copyright infringement. Same with a band covering, say, The Ramones' "Chinese Rock" at their first show in a small but crowded Pittsburgh bar. Technically, the venue owes ASCAP $10,000 for that one. Parody is safe though, as Fox Network and The Ramones once side-stepped this royalties nonsense when The Ramones, in Simpsonized form, sang a song entitled "Happy Birthday Burnsy" on Sunday night at Prime Time, to the evil Mr. Burns and changed lyrics, added "Happy Birthdays" in places previously without the chants and threw some insults in as well. I believe the altered tune ended with "Y'old bastard" and Mr. Burns asking Smithers to "Have the Rolling Stones Killed."

Let's issue a challenge! I like challenges! My big sister's birthday was earlier this month and I was unable to be there to sing to her, so here... I'm going to play some catch-up.

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday Dear Heather, Happy Birthday to you!

Time-Warner, I double-dog dare you...

Moving right along this wavelength, let's flash back eleven years. The timeframe is roughly the first week of September, 1996. I had earned twelve days in my life where family and friends sang "Happy Birthday" to me and my niece hadn't even acheived her first award of the family singing the song to her. The mood is both bummed and excited, which was the emotional mindset of every middle schooler at that time. Excited to see friends on a daily basis again, yet simultaneously depressed that Summer was over.

I recall the instance happening in band class (yes, I was in band for 6th and 7th grade. I played trombone, so spare me the skin-flute comments) during the first week of 7th grade. Mr. Chambers, our band teacher played "The Macarena" by Los Del Rio and taught us all how to dance to it. This instance has come up in my head every single time I've heard that song since. Working in a record store now, I'm occasionally exposed to the song and it always reminds me of that first week in 7th grade band when I learned the moves to the then huge dance-hit. Even at age 12 it seemed like a bizarre way to start off the school year. I don't recall Mr. Chambers ever telling us why he had us doing that ridiculous dance instead of scolding me for emptying my trombones spitvalve on the head of the pour soul sitting one row below me. Recently I learned why I ever learned how to dance to "The Macarena".

Here you will find a reprint of a Wall-Street Journal front-page article from the 23rd of August, 1996. Just a week or so before Mr. Chambers had the 7th grade, 6th period band class dancing to Los Del Rio's only commercial hit. The article, written eleven years ago, details how ASCAP was threatening to sue the Girl Scouts of America for campfire singalongs. Scam it over. Consider the following quote from an ASCAP representative:

'"They buy paper, twine and glue for their crafts -- they can pay for the music, too," says John Lo Frumento, Ascap's chief operating officer. If offenders keep singing without paying, he says, "we will sue them if necessary."'

Essentially ASCAP, holder of thousands upon thousands of copyrights, wanted to sue the Girl Scouts for singing not only "Happy Birthday", but countless other songs one would associate with a group such as the Girl Scouts. Why? Because the little girls weren't paying to sing them! These kids, who download music today, were first introduced to copyright law when they were told they had to learn to dance to "The Macarena" without music! I wonder what may have made kids today not feel bad about breaking copyright laws?

This was 11 years ago! The music industry was still raking in cash, yet concerned enough about their profit margins that they would accuse the Girl Scouts of stealing from them. The Fugees, No Doubt and Bush were some of the highest selling artists in the history of the music industry at the time and Kurt Cobain's body was hardly even cold yet. Napster had a few years before Lars Ulrich would appear on Mtv to accuse the college generation of mass-theft. Nobody at the RIAA had even conceived of the idea of suing a 12 year old girl, or an 85 year old woman on a fixed income. No college students were forced to quit school in order to pay the RIAA $5k a song in a settlement agreement. It wasn't too far off though. It was a natural progression from suing a group of children for campfire sing-alongs to suing anybody they could accuse of copyright infringement. It makes me wonder if soon they'll be trying to pass copyright laws dictating that people who reference popular TV series in print, by name have to pay a royalty to use the term "Friends" or "Survivor".

On the humorous side of things: It puts a big old smile on my face, realizing eleven years after the fact, that the first illegal action in my life was a middle school middle finger towards the music industry monster, all to the tune of "The Macarena".