Law Librarians May Have Killed World's Biggest Copyright Troll

A copyright troll may be singing a different tune after this week.

We here at Above the Law appreciate law librarians. Staci attended the AALL’s recent conference and it was the law librarian community that kickstarted the Twitter phenomenon #lawlibpickuplines. But for all their invaluable support, it’s rare that law librarians get to play the hero in a litigation. If anyone out there harbored lingering doubts over the importance of a top-notch law librarian, know that the most abusive copyright troll on the planet may have just gone down due to the diligent work of a law librarian. Not bad for a day’s work.

To set the scene, back in 2013, documentary filmmaker Jennifer Nelson filed a putative class action against Warner/Chappell Music, a subsidiary of Warner Music Group, and the killjoy trolls who claim to own the rights to “Happy Birthday to You,” the most recognized English language song in the world. For years, Warner/Chappell has zealously pursued every public performance of the song — up to and including stoking fears of taking down children’s party clips posted on YouTube — and demanded onerous licensing fees ranging from $500 to six-figure sums for the right to sing the song. It’s forced the entertainment industry to try desperately to make “For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow” happen just to avoid tangling with Warner’s lawyers, and even led Professor Larry Lessig to promote the world’s most depressing substitute tune.

And Warner Music Group manages to rack up around $2 million every year enforcing their copyright… except experts don’t think the company actually holds a valid copyright! But in a move that underscores the American legal system’s bias toward privileging theoretical justice over practical justice, Warner Music Group continues to collect royalties because no one has the time, money, or inclination to actually fight them in court.

However, Warner Music may be singing a different tune after Nelson’s class action got a shot in the arm this week:

The fourth edition of The Everyday Song Book was published in 1922 and contains lyrics for “Happy Birthday To You” without any copyright notice, which predates Warner/Chappell’s 1935 copyright registration. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the plaintiffs discovered evidence of the book, a blurry photo in Warner/Chappell’s own files, which they were given access to only three weeks ago. Tashbook retrieved Pitt’s rare copy and delicately scanned the relevant pages for the attorneys as fast as possible.

“Tashbook” is University of Pittsburgh law librarian Linda Tashbook, who was brought into the case after Nelson’s attorneys from Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLP reached out to Professor Michael Madison, an IP expert at Pitt Law, seeking a rare copy of the book that the lawyers believed to be wiled away in a Pitt library storage facility. Professor Madison called in Tashbook and the law library’s interim director Marc Silverman and managed to find a copy of the book next to the Ark of the Covenant in their cold storage.

Nelson’s attorneys immediately filed an ex parte motion to supplement the record in the pending summary judgment motions with the previously unknown evidence. As the motion explains, Warner Music Group claims that the blurry picture that led to the discovery of this song book had been “mistakenly” withheld during discovery.

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The one piece of smoking gun evidence was “mistakenly” withheld? Who on Warner’s legal team came up with that?

(Check out the latest filing on the next page…)

Pitt Law Librarians Help Uncover Smoking Gun Evidence in Historic “Happy Birthday” Song Lawsuit [Pitt Law]
“Happy Birthday” Lawsuit: “Smoking Gun” Emerges in Bid to Free World’s Most Popular Song [THR, Esq.]

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