In Los Angeles, federal judge George H. King ruled that Warner/Chappell Music did not hold a valid copyright to "Happy Birthday to You," the most recognized song in the English language, which had generated an estimated two million dollars per year in licensing fees. The court found that the original 1893 copyright covered only the melody's piano arrangement, not the song as commonly sung, and that a 1911 publication had placed the lyrics in the public domain.

The Happy Birthday ruling resonated with poets and writers as a dramatic example of how copyright law can capture and monetize the most basic elements of shared cultural expression. The case influenced contemporary poetry's engagement with questions of cultural commons, appropriation, and the privatization of language—themes central to conceptual poetry and the work of poets like Kenneth Goldsmith who explore the boundaries between found text, copyright, and creative expression in the digital age.