ASCAP and Performing Rights
In 1914 songwriters gained a society that collected fees for public performances.
Related
Time and place
New York, February 1914. Victor Herbert, John Philip Sousa and a group of songwriters founded the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.
What happened
Copyright then covered sheet music. Restaurants, dance halls and theatre orchestras performed popular songs, and the writers were paid nothing. ASCAP issued blanket licences to venues, collected annual fees against its repertoire, and distributed royalties from samples of what was played. When radio arrived, licences extended to broadcasters and receipts grew.
What changed
A songwriter could now earn from repeated performance, not only sheet-music sales. Professional songwriting took shape, with publishers and ASCAP supporting each other. Broadcasters and venues paid for music, which produced decades of conflict; in 1939 the radio industry formed BMI as a rival.
Listen to the turn
Gershwin's Rialto Ripples Rag, from 1917, was a piano rag ready for any venue. I Was So Young, from 1919, is a ballad carried by sheet music and live singing, and Do it Again, from 1922, has a short chorus a band could repeat. All three sit in an early ASCAP member's catalogue.
Related
The thread belongs to Modern; see Copyright, Royalty and License.
Listen in the library
All tracks from midicn-lib — inline badge is the license tier (C1 commercial / C2 non-commercial / C3 study only).
Sources
- Grove Music Online, entry "ASCAP"（Oxford University Press），用于核对其 1914 年成立与许可模式
- Russell Sanjek, American Popular Music and Its Business, Vol. 3（Oxford University Press, 1988），用于核对早期许可与广播冲突
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.