生日快乐故事

『壹』 《生日快乐》背后的故事

There were two sisters named Mildred Hill and Patty Hill. They together wrote a song for children, whose name was "Good morning ,all!" and it was deeply loved by children. 31 years later, Robert Coleman privately published the song without the two sisters' permission and added some words of song to it, namely "Happy birthday" known by all. These words added by Mr Coleman made the song very popular. In the end, the wordswritten by the two sisters fade from people's memory and "Happy birthday" completely replaced the original song "Good morning, all!" of the two sisters. After Mildred Hill died in 1916, Patty and another sister Jessica came forward and accused Mr Coleman to Court. In court, they proved in fact that they owned the right of the tunes and words of this song, and thus maintaining their own legal rights and interests.
有姐妹俩，一个叫玛德里德·希尔，一个叫柏蒂·希尔。姐妹俩一道为儿童们谱写了一首歌，歌名为《大家早上好》，这首歌深受儿童喜爱。三十一年以后，罗伯特·科尔曼未经姐妹俩的允许，私自出版了这首歌，并在这首歌后又加上了一段歌词，即大家熟悉的《生日快乐》。科尔曼先生增加的这段歌词使这首歌很快流行。最终，姐妹俩写的歌词被人们淡忘了，《生日快乐》完全取代了姐妹俩原来的歌曲《大家早上好》。玛德里德·希尔于1916年逝世后，柏蒂与另一个妹妹杰西卡出面将科尔曼先生告上了法庭。在法庭上，她们用事实证明，实际上她们拥有这首歌曲调的版权，从而维护了自己的合法权益。
祝你学习愉快！^_^

译者：高力超（贵阳市乌当中学教师）
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