A NICE ‘SANTA’ $CORE

Heirs reclaim song

A sleighful of money is coming to town for the heirs of J. Frederick Coots.

A Manhattan federal court transferred the ownership of the classic Christmas song “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” — written by Coots 81 years ago — to his heirs, taking it away from EMI, which had held the copyright sincee 1981.

Starting next year, the Coots heirs will getet an incomee stream from every new licensing of the song.

Want Santa to make a wish andd check it twice in a movie, commercial or holiday recording? The Coots family will determine who’s naughty or nice.

The decision is worth millions to the composer’s only surviving child, Gloria Coots Baldwin, of Boca Raton, Fla., and for six thirdgeneration Cootses. EMI had offered the family $2.75 million to drop their copyright claims.

“I’m 81, so I’m not going to go out and buy a bike and run around,” Baldwin, who was born the year her father wrote the song, told The Post. “He was just my dad, you know?” she said.

Her father composed 900 songs, Baldwin said, her favorite being the haunting jazz standard, “You Go to My Head.”

“Basically, I thought what they did was wrong,” Baldwin said of EMI retaining the disputed copyright.

“And so I went out and sued,” she said of her 2012 legal claim. Under Thursday’s decision by a threejudge panel, EMI keeps the foreign rights to “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town,” plus all the income from every license theyt issued for the song from 1981 through 2015, including Bruce Springsteen’s classic cover. So every time The Boss croons, “He sees you when you’re sleeping,” on the Duane Reade intercom, or another recording of the song is downloaded on iTunes, EMI will still get its cut.

The Coots heirs, meanwhile, have always retained the lucrative writer’s royalties on the song, which is a separate asset.

And, added Baldwin, “They don’t keep Canada. We’ve always had Canada.”

A lawyer for EMI did not immediately return messages seeking comment.