Sunday, October 29, 2006

You Can Buy Stock in the Happy Birthday Song

Not many people are aware that the song "Happy Birthday To You" is not in the public domain but actually owned by a music publishing company. That is why if you appear on TV to play an instrument, you are told not to play Happy Birthday, since the TV station doesn't want to pay a royalty on the song.

The rights to the song is owned by a company called Warner/Chappell Music Inc. which owns a huge library of songs including the songs of Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Dr. Dre, Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, Madonna, and Sheryl Crow. Warner/Chappell is in turn owned by Warner Music Group Inc., traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol WMG.

As always, this is not a recommendation to buy, sell, hold or short this stock.

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