This Copy right stuff is out of control.
Newspapers want hits on their web site so that they can sell advertising, perfectly understandable. One way (ugly) around this problem would be to place at random, an ad from a list of news paper advertisers as the first reply. I think most paper would go for something like that. It would help them and would not be a terrible thing for FR. Someone might suggest this to Jim.
The melody, with the possible exception of the dotted-eighth/sixteenth rhythm at the start of each line, is in the public domain as it was published prior to 1922 with the lyrics
Good morning to youI am unaware of any copy of the Happy Birthday lyrics having been published prior to 1922, though I've read that at least one pre-1922 publication of the work noted that the song was also titled "Happy Birthday to You" but did not explicitly write out the lyrics. It would seem likely that might be sufficient evidence to disqualify the claimed copyright on the lyrics, but a cartoon in 1935 (Ub Iwerks' Mary's Little Lamb) uses the tune (without lyrics) in such a way as to suggest it was primarily known with the "Good Morning to All" lyrics.
Good morning to you
Good morning dear ____ [or dead Children]
Good morning to all
That having been said, I'd like to see a restaurant use something like:
Your birthday's today.BTW, that latter point reminds me--I have on occasion heard restaurant staff singing made-up birthday-song replacements to tunes which, while their origins may not be well known, are more recent than "Good Morning to All" and are, in fact, still under copyright.
What more can we say?
The tune's out of copyright
ASCAP go away.