Battle over Happy Birthday song

Makers of a documentary about the song Happy Birthday to You are suing a major recording company over copyright to the jingle, called the most famous song in the English language. They are also seeking damages and restitution of more than $5 million in licensing fees collected by Warner/Chappell Music Inc from thousands of people and groups who’ve paid it licensing fees

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Album review: Inform Educate Entertain – Public Service Broadcasting

INFORM EDUCATE ENTERTAIN Public Service Broadcasting (Southbound) The novelty of mixing soundbytes from archival British propaganda material and public information films could so easily fall flat as a musical project but the curiously named J Willgoose Esq and Wrigglesworth, the electronic duo behind PSB, have the sonic nous to “teach the lessons of the past through the music of the future”. The late Margaret Thatcher features prominently on both the title track and Theme From PSB, while the strongest two tracks – Everest – a dazzling synthesizer soundscape about our own Sir Edmund Hillary’s climb to the top of the world, and Night Mail, which blazes with punk fervor and blazing guitars showcase the expansive compositional skills that PSB use to give the past meaning in the present.

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William Shatner spinning yarns

“Anything I tell you is 100 per cent the truth.” William Shatner – Bill, as he prefers – is sitting across from me in a plush Auckland hotel suite. William Shatner! He has just finished telling me about his close encounter with an endangered monk seal while on holiday in Hawaii, and before that it was the rather thrilling tale of the time he hunted down a 2.7m-tall Kodiak bear in Alaska, armed only with a bow and arrow

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