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 advance the interests of music publishers and songwriters in matters relating to the domestic and global protection of music copyrights. The NMPA has pursued litigation against numerous organizations, including Amway,Amway: The Untold Story: NMPA
(Press release), 25 November 2006. YouTube, Kazaa, LimeWire, Roblox, FullScreen including

Napster Napster was a peer-to-peer file sharing application. It originally launched on June 1, 1999, with an emphasis on digital audio file distribution. Audio songs shared on the service were typically encoded in the MP3 format. It was founded by Shawn ...

and more.

History

First half of the 20th century

The NMPA was founded in 1917 as the Music Publishers' Protective Association, seeking to end the practice of publishers having to pay vaudeville theaters for performing their music. The payola was said to have reached $400,000. The MPPA mandate went into effect May 7, 1917. Founding firms included: * Broadway Music Corporation * Joseph W. Stern & Co. * Waterson, Berlin & Snyder, Inc. * Al Piantadosi & Co. * Leo Feist Co. * T. B. Harms & Francis, Day & Hunter, Inc. * Maurice Richmond (1880–1965) * Jos. Morris Co. * Charles K. Harris * Harry Von Tilzer Co. * Shapiro, Bernstein & Co. * M. Witmark & Sons * James Kendis (1883–1946) *

James Brockman James Brockman (December 8, 1886 – May 22, 1967) was an American songwriter. Born in Russia, he emigrated to New York by himself at the age of 9 or 10. His given name was Jacob Brachman but he changed the spelling of the last name because it was ...

* Kalmar, Puck & Abrahams Consolidated, Inc. ( Bert Kalmar, Harry Puck, Maurice W. Abrahams) * F.J.A. Forster Co. * McCarthy & Fisher *

A. J. Stasny Music Co. A. J. Stasny Music Co. was an American publisher of popular sheet music. The firm was chartered as a New York corporation in 1922 by Betty "Bessie" Stastny ''(née'' Fisher) (1882–1974) and her husband, Anthony John Stastny (1885–1923), and M. ...

* J.H. Remick & Co. * Church, Paxson & Co. * Karczag Publishing Company (Wilhelm Karczag; 1859–1923) * William Jerome In 1927, the NMPA founded the Harry Fox Agency, a

mechanical rights 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 ...

collecting society.

Second half of the 20th century

In 1966 the name of the Music Publishers' Protective Association was changed to the National Music Publishers Association. The NMPA lobbies federal legislators and regulators on behalf of music publishers and crafted guidelines for the

Copyright Act of 1976 The Copyright Act of 1976 is a United States copyright law and remains the primary basis of copyright law in the United States, as amended by several later enacted copyright provisions. The Act spells out the basic rights of copyright holders, cod ...

21st century

In September 2001, the NMPA reached a settlement with

, turning the company into a fee-based service with publishers licensing music to the users."Early History of Napster"
by Moya K. Mason, 2010 The NMPA won a judgment against peer-to-peer filing service StreamCast Networks in September 2006. In 2007, NMPA joined a lawsuit against YouTube for hosting user-generated videos containing music under copyright. The suit was dropped four years later. Along with the Music Publishers Association (MPA), the NMPA has been responsible for taking many free guitar tablature web sites offline. NMPA President David Israelite asserted that " authorised use of lyrics and tablature deprives the songwriter of the ability to make a living, and is no different than stealing". The NMPA also pushed for rate hikes for legal downloads of music in 2008. In 2010, the NMPA represented EMI,

Sony/ATV Sony Music Publishing (formerly Sony/ATV Music Publishing) is the largest music publisher in the world, with over five million songs owned or administered as of end March 2021. US-based, it is part of the Sony Music Group, which is itself owned ...

, Universal and Warner/Chappell, Bug, MPL Communications, Peermusic and the Richmond Organization in a lawsuit against LimeWire. The suit sought $150,000 for each song that was distributed. NMPA is a member of the International Intellectual Property Alliance, a business alliance which amongst others publishes the Special 301 Report, a controversial list of countries that the coalition of copyright holders feel do not do enough to combat copyright infringements. In 2015, the NMPA sold the Harry Fox Agency to

SESAC SESAC is a for-profit performance-rights organization in the United States. Founded in 1930 as the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers, it is the second-oldest performance-rights organization in the United States.

. In December 2016, the NMPA announced that it had reached an agreement with YouTube to allow the distribution of royalties for musical works used in videos on YouTube where ownership was previously unknown.Chris Cooke
"NMPA announces deal with YouTube over unpaid song royalties,"
''Completemusicupdate.com'', December 9, 2016

References

External links