The long drawn out “Happy Birthday” controversy of Warner Chappell has been in dispute for decades now.
A simple evidence put forth by the challenging party negating the copyright owner’s claim can shift the burden of proof.Ī recent case that played out in the United States would be apt to elucidate this – The Warner/Chappell law suit. Only because one owns the copyright in a work, it ought not to be presumed that copyright owner would not bear the burden of proof in a suit contesting the ownership of copyright. One of the most important steps involved in protecting the song is to make sure that the copyright is registered correctly. Publishing of music can be both complex as well as confusing as it involves promoting, issuing of licenses, collecting royalties, etc. Publishing companies take this task upon themselves by getting the rights of the authors of the song assigned to them. So who takes up the responsibility of protecting and enforcing the rights related to the song. No one has the right to exploit a song unless the author of the song authorizes him/her to do so. Section 17 of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957 states that the author (composer and the lyricist in case of a song) is the first owner of the copyright. Songs form the corner stone of the music industry.