"The neatest outcome would be that restaurants will . . . stop singing . . . songs."

IANAL, but I believe that particular practice is prohibited under the auspices of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which, while not legaly binding as such, forms the linguistic basis of legal constructs within binding covenants and treaties to which the United States is a signatory.

The fact that this practice continues should surely be pursued with the utmost priority by all those concerned with probity and justice among civilized peoples.

You must be fun at parties.

Yikes! I literally have no clue what you are saying. Not sure how we connect alternative happy-birthday songs at restaurants with human rights.

Are you joking? Maybe this is just sarcasm bordering on being a little dark, but it would be funny. This is where seeing someone's face uttering the words would convey a lot more information.

It's a joke. I would rather have a root canal than have the wait staff of a chain restaurant come around and sing me one of their obnoxious birthday ditties.

"I ♥ NY" was part of a campaign to attract tourism, and became a pop-culture symbol; it's not an issue of copyright. In fact, using the heart is more likely to get them in trouble, since it's trademarked by NY and they go against imitators.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Love_New_York

Related and just as daft:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cafe_Hon#.22Hon.22_as_a_tradema...

I worried a little when I started selling this shirt: http://mrcoles.com/media/img/cool-harold-i-ny-ny-fractal-shi... but I figured it was either different enough or could be applied as a parody? (Or probably just no one cares, since it's not popular enough…)

It also seems like a lot of amateur t-shirt sites have tons of custom i <3 shirts.