More than 10 years ago, I launched Unhappy Birthday in a fit of copyrighteous exuberance. In the last decade, I have been interviewed on the CBC show WireTap and have received an unrelenting stream of hate mail from random strangers.

With a recently announced settlement suggesting that “Happy Birthday” is on its way into the public domain, it’s not possible for even the highest-protectionist in me to justify the continuation of the campaign in its original form. As a result, I’ve suspended the campaign while I plan my next move. Here’s the full text of the notice I posted on the Unhappy Birthday website: