The Harry Fox Agency (HFA) and the Music Publishers Association (MPA) have reached a collaboration with the National Association for Music Education (MENC) and the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) to connect America’s music educators with the music catalogs they need to license when they record student performances.
While recordings of student performances are commonplace, educators are often unaware that under U.S. Copyright law, such recordings must be properly licensed. The agreement provides that the members of MENC and MTNA will be able to easily and quickly license music from the MPA members’ serious and educational music catalogs through HFA’s online mechanical licensing service Songfile, through a specially-branded portal.
Under the agreement, the MPA will encourage its publishers that are not already HFA affiliates to register their catalogs for mechanical licensing through Songfile and will also provide marketing support, according to the press release announcing the agreement.
Meanwhile, MENC and MTNA will reach out to their members through their events and publications to educate them on the need for mechanical licensing for CDs, cassettes, LPS and permanent digital downloads and direct them to HFA’s Songfile, which contains HFA’s entire database of over 2.3 million songs in all genres. Licensing royalties from Songfile are paid to publishers on a commission-free basis.
