The ‘Happy Birthday’ song, moved into the public domain thanks to efforts of attorneys in a class action copyright claim against Warner/Chappell. A California federal judge ordered the team $4.6 million in fees for “the unusually positive results.”
“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,” wrote US District for Central California Judge George King in a fee order on Tuesday, pending from 2015 summary judgement in the case Rupa Marya v. Warner/Chappell Music Inc. – READ MORE