geekosystem

It's very likely that ASCAP and Time Warner are the only people who don't think it's stupid that the song "Happy Birthday to You" is copyrighted, and they only think that because they manage to squeeze two million dollars a year out of licensing the song. To combat this, radio station WFMU and the Free Music Archive teamed up to hold a contest for a replacement to the popular tune that we can all sing at parties, sing in public, and even sing in film and television without paying royalties as long as the artists are credited. The results are in, and here are your new go-to birthday jams.

Picking on the fact that "Happy Birthday" is not in the public domain is a pretty popular fact on which to poke fun, especially considering its popularity and age, and how deeply embedded into society the song is. Even Aaron Sorkin picks on it. Barats & Bereta, creators of digital shorts put up on the YouTubes, have come up with a solution to the age-old problem of "Happy Birthday" not being public domain. Granted, there are many ways around the issue to begin with, but this is an amusing one that's about "an Egyptian river god who finds a place to sleep atop two sheep and a deer named Harrison, who also happen to be governors of Algiers before the French conquest in 1830." So, you know. Watch it.

Today is the 70th birthday of renowned Japanese animator, Hayao Miyazaki, known to some as "Japan's Walt Disney," known to all as the creator of some of the most successful animated features in recent memory. His 2001 release, Spirited Away, was the first Japanese movie to win an American Academy Award and was produced after a short retirement following his previous effort, Princess Mononoke in 1997. In other words, we probably haven't heard the last of him.