FMA Celebrates Happy Birthday Contest

It's probably surprising to learn that “Happy Birthday to You” wasn't in the public domain, and recording or publicly performing it requires a paid license.

The famous song was registered for a copyright in 1935 by The Summy Company. Later on in 1988, The Summy Company was purchased by Warner/Chappell Music with “Happy Birthday to You” valued at 5 million dollars.

Warner demanded royalties when the song was performed publicly without their permission and payment, and can cost independent filmmakers thousands to clear the song for their films. Thus, FMA felt it was time to create a new repository of Happy Birthday for all to use.

Since FMA was founded in 2009 by the iconic WFMU radio station, it has walked hand in hand with Creative Commons, the giant international nonprofit organization that believes in the sustainable sharing of knowledge and culture.

Founded in 2001, Creative Commons offers“a free, simple, and standardized way to grant copyright permissions for creative and academic works.”

To this day, Creative Commons makes it possible for independent creators around the world, to create & share their works with countless users, while respecting the rights and value of these creators. All tracks available on FMA are licensed under Creative Commons licenses.

It came to no surprise that Free Music Archive wanted to celebrate Creative Commons in this way, the initiative and reason behind this contest is the epitome of what Creative Commons stands for.

In December 2012, a panel of judges including musician Jonathan Coulton and intellectual property reform advocate Lawrence Lessig picked the winners of the contest.

In third place is The Blank Tapes which is the moniker of Los Angeles and San Francisco based musician & artist, Matt Adams.
Listen to the third place winning version by The Blank Tapes: It's Your Birthday!

In second place is Bob Barta, who is a musician and vocalist specializing in traditional jazz styles on banjo, ukulele, and other fretted instruments.
Listen to the second place winning version by Bob Barta: An Alternative Birthday Song

And the first place winners of the contest are Monk Turner and Fascinoma with their winning version: It's Your Birthday!

Monk Turner wrote on his website in February 2013:

“Well ladies and gentlemen, today we learned that the FMA has chosen our song as a winner of the contest! We’ve been told this opportunity will offer a lot of exposure for our song and our music. What makes it even sweeter for me is that Lawrence Lessig was one of the judges. Yes, Mr. Free Culture himself heard our song! I’m honored, as I’ve read many of his books and I find him to be quite knowledgeable on a range of issues.”

The contest definitely brought a lot of exposure and press for this initiative, even reported by Bloomberg Law. But that exposure grew immensely with the continued rise of social media platforms, users and creators.

As of February 2023, their winning version has over 70,000 copies found online, with a view total of more than 253 million! Found in countless videos on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and not to mention, TikTok.

The FMA Team reached out to the two winners; Monk Tuner and Fascinoma who is Alanna Lin Ramage, to celebrate the anniversary and milestone of their record.

When you first saw the FMA happy birthday contest, what was your first thought on this very universal song/track/jingle?

MT: The contest was about challenging Warner Music's copyright claim to Happy Birthday to You by bringing attention to the fact that the song belonged in the public domain. I'm all about concept and love the idea of writing to a brief, so it seemed like an interesting challenge. I had just finished Emergency Songs with Alanna Lin Ramage aka FASCINOMA and I thought it would be a fun project for us to do.

ALR: I thought it was a great idea. The prompt to write something universal was --”whoa, that's so novel!” Because writing songs usually comes from a personal place, for me, I actually really loved the challenge of writing with some kind of external target / objective in mind.

How was the process of recording and writing your version of the happy birthday song?

MT: At the time, Alanna and I lived down the street from each other. I had just gotten a new recording set up and was excited to give it a try and this seemed like the perfect project to learn how to use it, so I invited her over. We did a quick analysis of Happy Birthday to You and used that as a guide for ours in terms of length and chord structure. The song was written and recorded in a couple of hours.

ALR: Monk was a bachelor back then, living in a flop house, making a ton of music with pretty minimalist gear. This didn't stop him from being a mega-force as a producer (no one I know has as much creative energy as him), but I remember we were recording between his desk and a single bed. I believe there was a laundry basket present. Shout-out to Little Tokyo in Downtown, LA!

When you submitted your version of the song, did you imagine it would gain the popularity it has now?

MT: When we submitted our entry, I felt like we had a pretty good shot at winning, but was pleasantly surprised when we actually won. The initial response was pretty incredible with quite a few news outlets picking up the story and the contest clearly gave the copyright issue with Happy Birthday to You some very much needed attention. Sure enough, the courts later ruled in 2015 that the song should be in the public domain, which it is now. I like to think our little song had some part in that. It's been amazing to see how far and wide our song has gone since that time, and how much joy it has brought to people around the world.

ALR: Is it popular? I'll believe it's popular when someone sings it to someone else at a restaurant and I happen to be nearby in another booth and can say, “Is that OUR song?”

See Monk Turner interviewing Alanna on his own birthday, where she sings their winning version to him.

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Even though “Happy Birthday to You” is now in the public domain, the contest was a major success, with the entries resulting in 7.6 million plays and 4.3 million downloads on FMA.

This isn’t the only contest FMA organized, next to tackling this universal song, FMA hosted many contests such as Anti-Pop Consortium Reflections Remixes, Revitalize Music Contest, microSong Challenge and the Audio Cookbook Challenge to name a few.

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It's the 10th year anniversary of the FMA happy birthday contest, which kind of contest would you like to participate in or see your fellow FMA peers be challenged with? Any suggestions?

MT: Rather than a contest, I would like to see the FMA reactivate more of the community of musicians. For example, there was at one time an FMA supergroup that I was a part of. We did two exquisite corpse projects that were a lot of fun. It would be great if that connection could once again be revived in a way that could help music creators connect.

ALR: I'd like a song contest for a song / stadium anthem that depolarizes people that are different from each other without being annoying or preachy. A song that unifies people across differences using a creative metaphor. Ideally without using the word “Unity” or “Melting Pot” and has a chorus that people can chant together at a concert.

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Creative Commons celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2021 to 2022, with online and in-person events. FMA provided a special curated mix of tracks by talented musicians, to salute and pay tribute to CC, as those tracks and the FMA catalog wouldn’t be possible to share without CC’s power & continued contribution in the world of music.

FMA is honored to be a home to so many independent artists and proud to be part of the community of Creative Commons. The Happy birthday contest and its success is a milestone in the movement for open music and shows the power of what these communities stand for.

A big thank you to WFMU, Creative Commons and all the amazing artists and musicians that participated in this contest!

Check out all the contest entries below, you will find 140 different versions to wish your loved ones a wonderful birthday!

All entries are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license so that they may be freely incorporated into new works of art as long as the artists and track are properly attributed.