Answers/Glossary/Harry Fox Agency
Glossary · Licensing
Harry Fox Agency
The Harry Fox Agency, founded in 1927, is a United States mechanical licensing agency. It issues mechanical licences on behalf of music publishers, historically for physical copies and downloads, and runs the Songfile service for licensing cover songs.
The Harry Fox Agency was established in 1927 by what is now the National Music Publishers' Association, and for most of the twentieth century it was how mechanical licensing worked in the United States. A record label that wanted to press someone else's song obtained the licence through HFA, HFA collected the penny-rate mechanical royalty, and HFA paid the publishers it represented. SESAC acquired the agency in 2015.
The Music Modernization Act changed HFA's role for streaming. Since January 2021 the blanket licence for interactive streaming and digital downloads has been administered by The MLC, so a self-administering songwriter's US streaming mechanicals now flow through The MLC rather than HFA.
What HFA still does matters to independent artists in one specific situation: cover songs on physical formats and outside the blanket licence. If you are pressing CDs or vinyl of a song you did not write, the blanket licence does not cover you, and HFA's Songfile service is the standard way to buy that licence for smaller quantities. For a purely digital cover release, distributors sell the licence as an add-on — DistroKid, for example, charges an annual per-cover fee.
The misunderstanding: treating HFA and The MLC as competitors you choose between. They are not alternatives for a songwriter. The MLC is where you register your works to be paid US digital mechanicals; HFA is where you may go to buy a licence for reproducing someone else's composition in a format the blanket licence does not reach.
Artist's summary of a licensing chain I have used — confirm requirements before pressing anything.
Related terms
- Mechanical royaltyA mechanical royalty is the money owed for reproducing a musical composition — copying the song itself, not the recording of it.
- The MLC (Mechanical Licensing Collective)The MLC is the non-profit organisation designated under the Music Modernization Act to administer the United States blanket…
- Compulsory licenseA compulsory license is a licence the law grants automatically, on set terms, without the copyright owner's consent.
- Section 115Section 115 of the United States Copyright Act creates the compulsory mechanical licence for musical compositions.
Answers that use this term
Definitions on this site describe the United States system. I am an artist who has been through this, not a lawyer.
Get the paperwork done in one afternoon
The Zero to Beat Society walks through registration, splits and release paperwork step by step — with the templates and checklists already filled in.
See the tiers