Will The Circle Be Unbroken is from 1907. It’s been declared to be in the public domain so no publishing rights remain on that old chestnut.
Good Morning To All is from 1893. The melody was ‘borrowed”/stolen for “Happy Birthday To You” and Warner Brothers claims that they still own publishing on Happy Birthday up until 2035 even though the birthday lyrics with that melody were published in 1912.
The way song publishing rights are handled is a crock.
Very much so. I can understand listing a credit as author so plagiarism can't be an issue, but century old rights and usage fees/permissions? That's a crock. There needs to be a much more reasonable expiration time frame. By 25 years most of the money and fame have been gotten out of such works. The result of the current laws is contrary to the reason behind the intent of the original laws to start with.