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What does HFA do?
HFA provides the following services to its affiliated publishers:
- Issues mechanical licenses
- Collects mechanical royalties
- Distributes mechanical royalties, and synchronization fees for licenses granted prior to 2002.
- Conducts royalty examinations
- Investigates and negotiates new business opportunities
- Pursues piracy claims
HFA does not:
- Issue licenses for the use of music in advertising, movies, and TV programs (aka synchronization licensing or "synch"). Service was discontinued in 2002.
- Represent songwriters and publishers for the placement of their music in films and for use by other performers.
- Administer performance rights - The right to play or perform the music in a public setting such as a restaurant, concert halls, radio station, or nightclub.
- Issue print rights - the rights to change the lyrics, or to publish them in printed form.
- Issue master use rights - the right to use an original artist recording.
- Provide clearance for the use of samples.
To obtain a synch license, print right, or sample clearance, you need to contact the music publisher directly. For more information on how to do that, read on.
To obtain a performance right, or to gain representation for your work for the use by others, we suggest you contact the U.S. performance rights societies. Their websites contain search engines that can also assist you in finding publisher information for Synch licensing, print rights, or sample clearances.
For "master use" or sampling rights, you will also need to contact the owner of the master recording, usually the record company that issued the original recording. You can discover what record label issued the recording by looking it up on a retail website, such as amazon.com.
Other websites that may be helpful to you for your research are:
