The Happy Birthday song copyright scam ends
The Happy Birthday song hasn’t been in copyright for generations, and everybody knew it. That didn’t stop Warner Chappell music from running a scam where they extorted “royalties” from movies and restaurants that featured the song, charging less than it would cost anyone to litigate the question. Until, that is, a documentary about the song decided […]
New Open Letter Calls on TPP Negotiators to Stand up for User Safeguards
Copyright restricts all kinds of important, everyday uses of creative works—even worse, these strict rules last nearly two lifetimes for any given work. We are fighting to reform and push back against these restrictions in the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), especially those that undermine the public’s ability to use, research, remix, or otherwise modify digital […]
