A little wonder, every day
“Happy Birthday” entered the US public domain
AI-generated illustrative cover, created 2026-10-25. Prompt: “Editorial still life, vertical 4:5, birthday cake with candles beside a handwritten greeting card and a sheet of public-domain court papers with all text illegible, tasteful neutral background, no readable words, no logos. Illustrative cover about the legal status of the Happy Birthday song in the United States.”
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The rights to “Happy Birthday to You” no longer belong to Warner/Chappell. In 2016, a US federal court approved a settlement declaring the song to be in the public domain in the United States and requiring the company to fund refunds of some previously collected licensing fees. This applies to the United States; copyright may differ in other countries.
