The Harry Fox Agency (HFA) is a provider of rights management and collector and distributor of

mechanical license In copyright law, a mechanical license is a license from the holder of a copyright of a composition or musical work, to another party to create a "cover song", reproduce, or sample a portion of the original composition. It applies to copyrighted ...

fees on behalf of

music publisher A music publisher is a type of publisher that specializes in distributing music. Music publishers originally published sheet music. When copyright became legally protected, music publishers started to play a role in the management of the intellect ...

s in the United States. HFA has over 48,000 music publishing clients and issues the largest number of licenses for physical and digital formats of music. It was founded in 1927 by the

National Music Publishers Association The National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA) is a trade association for the American music publishing industry. Founded in 1917, NMPA represents American music publishers and their songwriting partners. The NMPA’s mandate is to protect and ...

. The agency was sold to

performing rights organization A performance rights organisation (PRO), also known as a performing rights society, provides intermediary functions, particularly collection of royalties, between copyright holders and parties who wish to use copyrighted works ''publicly'' in loca ...

SESAC in 2015, which was itself acquired by

The Blackstone Group Blackstone Inc. is an American alternative investment management company based in New York City. Blackstone's private equity business has been one of the largest investors in leveraged buyouts in the last three decades, while its real estate b ...

in 2017.

Services

HFA provides the following services to its affiliated publishers: *Issues mechanical licenses *Collects and distributes mechanical royalties *Conducts royalty examinations *Pursues piracy claims *Offers rights management

solutions Solution may refer to: * Solution (chemistry), a mixture where one substance is dissolved in another * Solution (equation), in mathematics ** Numerical solution, in numerical analysis, approximate solutions within specified error bounds * Soluti ...

: Slingshot

Songfile

Songfile is an online mechanical licensing tool designed for the D.I.Y music industry market. It allows the public to search through over millions of songs and purchase licenses. A mechanical license is needed if one wants to manufacture and distribute recordings that they did not write. Through Songfile, licenses can be obtained for physical works, permanent digital downloads (PDDs), ringtones, and interactive streaming distribution. Users pay a per-song processing fee and royalties for licenses, which are set at the current U.S. statutory rate.

Slingshot

Services include end-to-end support for: Licensing, Database Management, Royalty Services, Content Consulting, and Auditing.

Copyright claims

In October 2012, HFA became involved with copyright claims of musical works in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...

on YouTube. As the designated YouTube administrator for thousands of music publishers, HFA uses the Content Management System (CMS) to review YouTube user disputes for the use of song compositions protected under copyright law. Many arrangements of public domain works are under copyright, even if the original is not, and because the CMS tool is not perfect, some false disputes are created.

References

{{Authority control Music licensing organizations Music publishing companies of the United States Organizations established in 1927