Do restaurants have to pay to sing happy birthday?
Do restaurants have to pay to sing happy birthday? Movie producers and restaurant owners need to obtain a license to broadcast or publicly perform the “Happy Birthday to You” song. You are safe if you sing this song in your home, or even at your office, since neither setting would constitute a “public performance” for copyright purposes.
Why did restaurants stop singing happy birthday?
So, if you own a restaurant and you pay your staff to sing a song on a patron's birthday, then because money exchanges hands for this service as part of their job, they can't sing anything under copyright protection without paying the royalties.
What is the highest grossing song of all time Happy Birthday?
Later, the 2003 documentary, The Corporation, noted that Warner charged as high as $10,000 (€9,400) for the song to appear in a film. This all made the song the highest-earning single song in history, collecting an estimated $2 million (€1.8 million) a year in licensing fees.