Wednesday, September 23, 2015
BAP! POW! OOF! Steamboat Willie goes down!
Another sane man! A Federal JUDGE (not a satan or saboteur as usual) struck a blow for REAL LAW, with a hidden sucker punch in the decision.
King ruled that Warner/Chappell’s claim to the “Happy Birthday” lyrics were simply not supported by the facts. The Hill sisters “did not try to obtain federal copyright protection” and so could not pass those rights on to another company, and eventually to Warner, King wrote. And when a copyright was registered in 1935, it was for a particular piano melody, not the lyrics, King pointed out. Besides, by then “Happy Birthday” was already solidly in the public domain.Breaking Warner's stolen monopoly is good, but not the important part. Did not try to obtain federal copyright protection is the sucker punch. Until now, Disney's bespoke copyright "law" has been illegally applied retroactively. We were forced to assume that the bad 'implicit copyright' rule applied to all works after 1923, even though the bad rule didn't exist until 1998. This sane JUDGE knows what ex post facto means. Bravo to JUDGE King! ¶ 1:36 AM
