As you might guess, Warner isn't doing this as a kindness. It's estimated to have raked in $50 million through licensing "Happy Birthday" in the past few decades, and the plaintiffs believe the label would have scooped up to $16.5 million more if the lawsuit hadn't happened. Rather, the settlement will head off an outright loss that would have proven much more costly. A federal judge had already ruled that Warner's lyrics copyright was invalid -- the company faced the real possibility of having to pay full compensation to everyone who'd licensed the tune in the past.

It's rare to see any company settle a licensing case like this by agreeing to a public domain release. However, this suggests that copyright isn't always sacrosanct among media giants. They're willing to end their battles if the cost of holding on to royalties is too high. You probably won't see this happen very often, but the fact that it happened at all is noteworthy.