Who Owns the Copyright to “Happy Birthday”?

One of the major issues of copyright reform is the term of the copyright. See, for example, Larry Lessig's comments at http://wiki.lessig.org/Against_perpetual_copyright.

I had always assumed "Happy Birthday" was public domain, if for no other reason than lack of enforcement. The idea of some company collecting royalties is re-god-damn-diculous.

Great summary. I had heard this song was copyrighted, but didn't realize the history behind it. It will be interesting to see the outcome of the lawsuits challenging the copyright.