It’s a myth that copyrights are owned by creative artists. Big companies own them. Take “the ubiquitous ‘Happy Birthday,’ whose tune was composed by Mildred Hill, a kindergarten teacher in Louisville, in 1893, was copyrighted in 1934 by her sister Jessica Hill, after the ditty with new lyrics attached appeared in the Broadway musical The Bank Wagon and had been used by Western Union for its singing telegram. Rights to the song changed hands several times and today they are owned by Summy-Birchard Music, which in turn is owned by AOL Time Warner, for which it earns $2 million a year in royalties for public usage. (Don’t worry about singing it around your dining table; AOL Time Warner has not figured out how to collect on that yet.)”