Two weeks ago, the U.S. government ordered two large debt-buying companies to stop collecting consumer debts worth $128 million and to change the way they did business. Their crime: buying debts without proper documentation and then trying to collect the money without knowing whether the debt was legit. Two days ago, a federal judge ordered WARNER/CHAPPELL to stop collecting royalties on the song "HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU" -- worth an estimated $2 million a year -- because it couldn't provide any evidence the song had ever been legally copyrighted. WARNER/CHAPPELL was the song's third owner, having bought it via a 1988 acquisition. The first owner, CLAYTON F SUMMY CO., is long gone, as, apparently, is any paper trail documenting the song's copyright. WARNER/CHAPPELL charged up to six figures for certain uses of the song. TUESDAY's ruling put a stop to that. So here's a new suggestion for limiting the ever-lengthening term of creative copyrights: If the work in question is so old you don't even know where the paperwork is, maybe that's a good time for the work to enter the public domain... People are tweeting and Instragramming their $17.38 receipts... A Latin music playlist in honor of POPE FRANCIS' U.S. visit... That time GEORGE HARRISON refused to expose his buttocks onscreen. In a pool. With a hippopotamus.