‘Happy Birthday’ lawyers net $4m in attorneys’ fees
The lawyers who succeeded in bringing “Happy Birthday to You” into the public domain following a copyright dispute over the lyrics have been awarded $4 million (£3.1 million) in fees.
According to Judge George King at the US District Court for the Central District of California, the award was justified given the “unusually positive results achieved by the settlement”.
The attorneys’ fees award was the last piece of litigation to finalise after the defendant, music publisher Warner/Chappell, agreed to pay $14 million in damages to documentary maker Good Morning to You Productions and allow the song to enter into the public domain.
Five lawyers, four partners and an associate at law firm Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz, claimed $4.62 million for time spent working on the case.
Handing down the judgment, on August 19, King said a “lodestar method” of calculating damages would be appropriate.
Lodestar awards see trial courts multiply the number of hours spent by counsel by a reasonable hourly rate. The final figure can then be increased or decreased taking into account factors including multipliers, which assess the quality of work.
King said that $3.85 million would be “a rough, but reasonable, lodestar calculation”, but added a multiplier of 1.2 for the quality of the work and the complexity of the case.
“Given the unusually positive results achieved by the settlement, the highly complex nature of the action, the risk class counsel faced by taking this case on a contingency fee basis, and the impressive skill and effort of counsel, we conclude that a 1.2 multiplier is warranted,” King wrote.
The case stemmed from a 2013 class action lawsuit filed by Good Morning to You against Warner/Chappell.
In the case, Good Morning to You claimed that Warner/Chappell was not the owner of the copyright to the song and had unfairly collected royalties.
Warner/Chappell previously charged th e film company $1,500 to use the song in a documentary it was making.
In September last year, Warner/Chappell lost its rights to the song after the California court ruled that another music publisher, Clayton F Summy Company, did not transfer the rights to the lyrics as part of a deal agreed in 1998.
The court said the song should enter the public domain, and both parties agreed to settle the lawsuit.
The song was originally composed in 1893 under the name “Good Morning to All”.
