(New York Post) A new suit says it’s time to blow out the candles and cancel the copyright for “Happy Birthday to You.”

A documentary film company filed a $5 million-plus suit this morning to put the beloved, 120-year-old tune into the public domain.

Court papers charge that Warner/Chappell Music “boldly, but wrongfully and unlawfully, insists that it owns the copyright” to the song and “either has silenced those wishing to record or perform ‘Happy Birthday to You’ or has extracted millions of dollars in licensing fees from those unwilling or unable to challenge its ownership claims.”

“Irrefutable documentary evidence, some dating to 1893, shows that the copyright to ‘Happy Birthday to You,’ if there ever was a valid copyright to any part of the song, expired no later than 1921 and that if defendant Warner/Chappell owns any rights to ‘Happy Birthday to You,’ those rights are limited to the extremely narrow right to reproduce and distribute specific piano arrangements for the song published in 1935,” according to Manhattan federal court filing.

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