3 ms·

How can a settlement place something in to the public domain if it was already there? If you are arguing that Warner has no rights, then Warner has no ability

• kemayo 10y ago
  It's because a settlement is a compromise between the parties in the suit, not an official legal finding. Thus, legally speaking, no position is taken on whether or not Happy Birthday technically was in the public domain already. Presumably Warner agreed to this because it was (a) cheaper than fighting the full suit, and (b) avoided setting that legal precedent that might have hurt their ownership of other songs. Here's the settlement document: https://happybirthdaylawsuit.com/Portals/0/Documents/OFJ.pdf https://happybirthdaylawsuit.com/Portals/0/Documents/OFJ.pdf
  • jsprogrammer 10y ago
    Thanks for the link, the document says that the Court declared the song to be in the public domain. The ars article is a bit misleading then as it seems to imply that Warner somehow placed it into the public domain. Also note that the Court only placed it in the public domain as of the final settlement date, rather than retroactively back to its apparently false registration.
    • kemayo 10y ago
      Yeah, the way it works is that the court implements and enforces the agreement between the parties, using those fun legal powers -- that's why the judge had to approve the agreement. So a more accurate statement would have been "Warner agreed to have it placed in the public domain". Again, "apparently false registration" is something that the agreement carefully avoids making a determination on. There's a bunch of "this is not an admission of guilt" language in there, which is how settlements normally work.