Ep. 44: Brittain Ashford: Executive Director of the Music Publishers Association

Today’s guest is Brittain Ashford, Executive Director of the Music Publishers Association, a trade organization focused on education and advocacy of issues pertaining to music publishing and print music.

Their website, mpa.org, has a wealth of free information and resources pertaining to copyright, as well as information about their partnerships with other music organizations.

We had a great conversation about the work of the MPA, the things self-publishers need to know about copyright, and the massive debt we, as a society, owe to the player piano.

Brittain Ashford, thank you for coming on the show.

It’s exciting to have you.

Thank you for having me.

We had Kathy Fernandez on the show last year, and she spoke very highly of you and the MPA.

I’m excited to pick your brain on the organization and a lot of the adjacent issues which probably are mostly going to be about copyright, but other things as well.

I think our listeners can largely be divided into two groups.

You have, on one side, people who are more aspiring composers trying to get into the business, students, that sort of thing.

Then on the other side, you have more experienced composers, people in the industry, people working for publishers, that sort of thing.

I’m going to try and give you questions for both groups.

That way, everyone leaves happy.

We’ll see if I actually succeed or not.

I’m ready for it.

But I’m trying not to ask you the same old questions everybody always asks about copyright.

Anyway, but let’s start with the MPA, because I don’t really know much about the organization at all.

What is the MPA and what do they do?

All right.

So the short answer, the Music Publishers Association, it’s a non-profit organization, really dedicated to educating people about copyright law and intellectual property.

Not only for music educators, but also creating a community, really, and a line of communication amongst our publishers, with a goal of bringing awareness and fairness and value to, I think we’ll touch on this.

It’s a very specific corner of the industry.

So that is our goal.

And how do you define the publisher part of that?

Is it print publishing?

Is it all kinds?

Because you have the publishers, the owners of the copyright, but then you also have the publishers, the creators that are publishing and printing music, and sometimes the two get mixed up.

Sure.

For our sake, what we’re doing mostly focuses on folks who are participating in print publishing, and defined per our bylaws is any individual partnership association, limited liability company or corporation engaged in the business of music publishing, which for purposes of membership of the association shall be defined as curating or editing and preparing musical works for publication, and or publishing such musical works in printed or other form, which in this case means digital.

So if you are an online only company preparing work for digital distribution, that also counts.

Awesome.

Does the MPA want individual publishers or independent publishers involved in the organization?

Absolutely.

We actually have three independent publishers currently sitting on our board, which is pretty exciting.

Our board’s 20 folks.

So we really encourage that participation.

I think that there’s a lot of information we share as an organization that’s really valuable, especially to those people who don’t have a giant team that they’re working with.

If they don’t have someone who is actively following trends or legislation on their behalf, there’s so much we can learn from each other, particularly at the board level.

There’s a lot of board members who say, yeah, I learned something at every meeting.

It might not even be laser focused on what their company does, but it’s something that’s interesting and we’re talking about it.

I think it’s really important to have people who are individual publishers, independent publishers, mixing with larger folks.

What does an independent publisher need to do to join the MPA?

Application process is pretty simple.

You just need to submit three physical scores.

You can apply via our website and it basically sends me a little form, and I take a look at the website that’s linked there of the publisher in question, and I’ll write them back and say, hey, thanks for applying.

Can you send me three PDFs of work that you feel best exemplifies what you’re doing as well as a copy of your catalog that’s currently available?

It’s pretty easy.

We try to make it painless.

Do’s for folks who are at a certain level, like I would say at least a third of our members are very small operations, so just individuals or representing three composers or fewer.

And at that rate, do’s are $50 a year, and then it gives you access to all the stuff that we do.

Meetings and events.

There’s a great holiday party we have every year.

It’s largely based in New York, right?

I mean, the organization is based in New York, and historically a lot of music publishing has been based in New York.

But as you know, being based in Nashville, like these things change.

A lot of publishing is in Nashville.

There’s definitely publishing in Los Angeles.

So folks are all over the country, but for the sake of gathering, our gatherings are always in New York.

So our board meeting, our annual membership meeting, as well as our holiday party are all held in New York.

And if somebody is not a publisher, how can they get involved with the MPA and support what you’re doing?

I mean, mostly like our focus is on our publishers.

So if you’re not a publisher, you can’t necessarily be a member, but you can definitely follow along at home at initiatives that we’re doing.

I mean, if you’re a music educator, you’re passionate about sheet music and publishing, but you’re not actually creating works yourself.

It’s natural that you’d want to support an organization like this.

Yeah.

I mean, we have all this information available for educators.

Just obviously, it’s for free.

It is out there.

But if you wanted to get involved, have someone speak at your school, that’s something that could be arranged.

This is part of our initiative that we’re going to be taking on in the coming, I want to say, it’s a three-year initiative to create just broader outreach for educators, to appeal to educators, and create more content that folks can engage with.

That includes having a live session where people can ask questions, and having it be online so that people anywhere can dial in and it doesn’t cost them a fortune to get to New York and just ask questions that are common.

Yeah.

I’m curious on what your perspective is, but I get the sense just anecdotally even that more and more composers are self-publishing their music, and I see that side of the industry growing really rapidly.

Does that match with your worldview?

Yeah.

I think that’s really a question of access, and I think it has become so much easier to do that on your own and access tools that make it easy to self-publish your own work, including digital distribution platforms where you can be your own boss, engrave your own music and put it up for people to download and buy.

Well, and as you say, with more and more independent publishers, I think the need for education grows with that because there are more people trying to do it on their own and they don’t have that institutional knowledge that these larger corporations that have been around for decades have.

I think the work that your organization is doing is extremely valuable, and I think probably will become more so just as this all evolves.

I should have asked this at the top, but what is your background as a musician, and how did you come to be the Executive Director of the MPA?

Great question.

I have been with the organization for 17 years at this point.

I moved to New York, and it was one of many, many, many jobs that I applied for, and it was particularly of interest to me because I am a musician.

I never really thought I would find myself thoroughly invested in music publishing.

I mean, truth is, I don’t know that I knew what a music publisher was when I applied for the job.

I was just at a school, and it ended up being a really good fit for me because it’s something I can be passionate about.

I really care about the rights of creators, particularly as someone who’s a composer and a songwriter myself.

It’s funny you say that because I’m an arranger primarily, and I’m sure we’ll get into this later, but from time to time, I’ll reach out to artists to get permission to arrange their song or to do something with their song.

And half the time, the question I get back is like, I don’t know.

That part of the business, publishing sheet music is completely foreign to a lot of people.

It’s just something that isn’t really part of the, even for musicians, it’s just very interesting.

Even within artists, the thing that we do is kind of niche and off to the side and not very well understood.

Yeah.

Again, I think there’s a lot of people, a lot of my friends are like, wait, what do you do?

You make sheet music?

And I’m like, no, no, no, no, music publishing.

And there’s two different facets of it, right?

There’s the underlying copyright, music publishing, and then there’s also the actual, what I think a lot of people think about, like a book publisher, or like someone who actually makes the music on paper.

So is the reason for that just that like in Ye Olden times, the only thing publishing meant was to physically print something?

Is that where the terminology comes from?

Yes.

Yeah.

And I think it was way back, certainly.

You had what?

Is the phonograph and the publishing, right?

That was it.

Yeah.

I mean, it’s so funny.

It’s like you can really get into the weeds on this stuff.

But like modern day copyright law is basically based around player pianos, like player piano roles.

It’s really funny.

Even like the phrase, mechanical license goes back to like player pianos.

That’s just how the law was set up and a lot of that language has stuck.

So why hasn’t the language been updated?

Is it just Congress’s fault or is there some other more interesting reason?

I mean, great question.

I don’t want to place blame on a particular party.

That’s not what we’re here to do.

Well, both parties have had the chance, right?

Theoretically.

Sure.

No, I didn’t mean like, not along party lines.

No, just is it the publishers?

Is it government?

Is it, you know, because you could argue, you’re like, all right, why aren’t publishers pushing for faster change?

And like, why isn’t government responding to what is already an issue?

This is actually, I mean, super relevant.

Even now, we have, you know, major publishers who want to pull their catalogs from, not to be named, social media outlets because they’re fighting for better rates.

And until the fight is really, until it comes to a boil, you know, it’s always one of those things like we should do this.

Like, it’s not to say that people haven’t been lobbying for better rates, higher rates.

An organization that we work with a lot is the National Music Publishers Association.

And, you know, David Israelite is really out there on the forefront fighting, fighting for songwriters, fighting for publishers, fighting for composers to get better rates.

Mostly in the world of, like, streaming, which is not something that, like, we as an organization, we’re not focused on that.

But we care, because it’s still relevant.

And I think it is still relevant to a lot of our publishers.

It’s just not, you know, we don’t have the same amount of resources.

And so that is not where we put our energy.

It’s just interesting, because you would think that all parties would have an interest in the language of the law matching the tools or the reality of what we’re actually using day to day.

You know, it’s just fascinating to me that we’re trying to figure out, you know, copyright and artificial intelligence and machine learning.

But the law is literally, as you say, written for player pianos and like phonographs and like ye olden times.

Yeah.

And that’s something that I think is going to be really interesting coming out of the AI discussion and the fact that it is, the technology is moving so quickly.

And as an industry, as a music industry, I’m not even talking about like a publishing facet of the music industry.

The industry is just not moving as fast because the AI companies have more money and more resources and more time.

I mean, it’s such a bigger, it’s so much bigger than just music.

And in fact, most of the legislation that’s coming out of Congress right now isn’t particularly focused on music.

It’s focused on, you know, cases with the New York Times and art.

And, you know, the music is not at the forefront, but it should be.

So would you say the MPA is more focused on education for musicians or is it advocacy with the government or do you view those as the same thing?

I mean, I mean, our goal is education and advocacy, and it’s a constant question and it does change.

Like, education of what?

Advocacy for what?

And so it’s, you know, intellectual property and copyright education, which I think is really important to both songwriters, composers, and of course, our publishers.

The work that they represent really is our publisher and the composers that they represent.

So, making sure that both publishers and composers are aware of certain legalities, as well as the people who are using the music.

I think there’s, you know, we’ve had a strong focus on educating educators, like teachers, professors, instructors on, you know, what you can and can’t do, what you should do when trying to secure certain licensing.

And can you give us some examples of areas that the MPA is most focused on right now?

Like, what is it keeping you up at night?

Well, I’d like to say there’s not a lot keeping me up at night, fortunately.

I mean, not right now.

Get back to me tomorrow.

There are, again, historically, we’ve really focused on educational efforts.

Right now, there are two resources available.

One is for younger students, and it really, without being like too heavy handed, is just supposed to help younger kids, like grade five and below, kind of just grasp the concept of intellectual property as it pertains to an artist.

It’s not even, again, it’s not really focused on music.

It’s just sort of outlining what it is to create a thing, and why you should want to protect that, and why that idea is yours.

So it’s really meant to be easily digestible, something that a teacher could show to their classroom, and it’s something like an art teacher could use, a music teacher could use, even a history teacher, civics, just like why it’s important to value other people’s creations.

So that’s for younger kids.

Then we also have a lesson plan for college level.

It’s called Copyright and You.

It’s a guide for college music educators.

That’s for instructing our future music teachers.

So that’s the students who are going to be teaching high school, elementary.

I mean, certainly even at the college and university level.

But it outlines common questions that come into play in the classroom.

And how, again, outlining the importance of why it’s important to know these things and why we need to make sure our creators are compensated for their work.

Is that something that we can share?

Where can people find that?

Absolutely.

So the one that’s for younger students, it’s called I Made It, and that’s available at imaded.org.

And again, there’s a lesson plan that if teachers wanted to, they could print out and ask some questions with the kids, just sort of like guide them.

And that has just a cute little animated short video.

It’s a couple of minutes.

So that’s at imaded.org.

And then the Copyright in You is available on the MPA website.

Awesome.

Yeah, we’ll link to that in the show notes so people can find that a little easier.

I would say probably most of the people listening to this show are involved in some level of self-publishing their own music.

Is there a difference legally in doing that as an independent person versus like registering as some sort of a business entity?

Does that have copyright implications?

Is that something that needs to be a priority for somebody getting started in the business?

No, I think certainly not copyright implications.

I mean, there’s other legal implications that have nothing to do with copyright.

For say, if you’re trying to run a business, you want to file your taxes as a business person.

If you’re spending money on your new publishing entity, you want to make sure you’re keeping track of all your expenses, and that you can separate that from your personal expenses.

I think that’s important.

But it also depends on where you are, if you’re just getting started or if you’re a little deeper into it.

But I think if you’ve been doing it for a couple of years, and you’re getting commissions, schools and performing organizations are using your work, I think it’s a great idea to register as some business, be it an LLC or just an individual.

I think that that is a useful tool.

But that doesn’t change the copyright ownership in the work that you produce.

No, absolutely not.

If you, Garrett, write a song, it doesn’t matter if it’s just you or Garrett LLC.

It doesn’t matter.

The work is still copyrighted as you choose.

And my understanding is you have the copyright in your creation as a result of you creating it.

It’s not necessary to formally register it in order to own it.

Is that accurate?

That’s true.

The common term is fixed form.

Once a work is in fixed form.

The most important thing, and I think that again, historically before a digital era, it was really important to have your stuff registered.

It’s not to say that it’s not important.

But if you can point to a thing, you’re like, yeah, I started selling this.

We’re talking about sheet music specifically.

I started selling my song via this digital distributor, and you can see it’s been available on this platform since 2021.

Then someone came along and did the same thing in 2022.

You can say, no, mine came first.

You can point to that, that’s there.

It used to be like you’d have to register something with the Library of Congress, then you go and you pull it up and it’s.

Everyone says you have to put it in an envelope and not open it and all this stuff, right?

No.

In 2024, we don’t need to be sticking things in envelopes and getting them certified or whatever.

I mean, you can, but if you’re going to do that, you should register it with the Office of Copyrights.

That might as well.

Yeah.

If you could point to even like your email, you email it to yourself, that is time stamped.

The main thing is if you’re potentially faced with an issue of copyright infringement, what it comes down to is who has the upper hand there.

So if a huge popular recording artist, somehow you cross paths with them and they end up stealing your idea or whatever, like that is going to be a hard fought battle.

Whatever you can point to to be like, no, no, I did this first will be beneficial to you.

In a lot of cases, sometimes people engage in copyright infringement on accident or because they just they didn’t know or it didn’t occur to them, or even like we look at cases of like the Tom Petty Sam Smith song, Stay With Me Won’t Back Down.

You’re familiar with this case?

Yeah.

So for anyone who somehow isn’t, Tom Petty ultimately was like really nice about it.

There was no lawsuit there.

He was just like, it’s okay, bro.

These songs live in the ether.

This happens all the time and usually someone notices before it leaves the studio.

But in this case, they are remarkably similar and I think Tom Petty is actually credited as a songwriter on Sam Smith’s song, Stay With Me.

That was kind of a tangent.

But in an instance like that, two people who have created a thing that is very popular and they talk it out.

There’s no legal repercussion needed because it’s so obvious.

Well, and everyone knows Tom Petty wrote that song.

They don’t need to go find the envelope that it was like time stamped with.

Exactly.

Yeah.

I know there’s not an answer to this, but I’m going to ask it anyway.

Okay.

Where is the line as to what is copyrightable and what’s not?

There’s certain drum grooves that every song has.

It’s not like I invented For To The Floor, you know what I mean?

Certain bass lines, like I’m not the first person to use all eighth notes on a one chord, and then all eighth notes on a five chord.

There are patterns that you see in all types of music.

And where’s the line between something that’s standard, that everybody uses, that’s accepted as part of the genre, and something creative that I made?

And this, you know, I made this.

I’m going to preface what I’m about to say with, I’m not a lawyer.

This is not like legally binding terminology.

But chord progressions can’t be copyrighted.

Song titles can’t be copyrighted.

Even, you know, you can trademark your band name.

But, you know, we know there’s a handful of bands with the same name over a couple of decades, you know, and again, people like fight it out for who’s going to get more popular.

But yeah, you’re right.

It’s, there’s certain things you can’t copyright.

So when you’re looking at trying to think of like notable cases, this is an interesting one.

And I think actually the blurred line case really changed, like how we think about copyright infringement.

So the whole, the accusation was that the blurred line song like stole a feel, right?

Like it wasn’t even like the song, like they weren’t like these eight bars are the same as these eight bars.

It was like, it was the vibe.

It was the vibe.

And that’s, I mean, I don’t like that blurred line song personally, but it set an interesting precedent moving forward.

And of course, there was a lot of like, there were news articles that like, the case sets a bad precedent and our songwriters are scared.

And like, I don’t.

Well, the jury was non-musicians, right?

I mean, because if you play those songs for people that aren’t familiar with the history of music over the last 20 years, like of course they’re going to say it sounds the same, maybe not understanding that, like there’s a million songs that sound like that.

Yes.

Yeah.

And so that’s interesting.

Then we also have like, you know, this Ed Sheeran case that was just last year, where to his credit, you know, he went into that courtroom and was like, here is the song that you claim my song sounds like, let me play it for you on guitar and sort of did it.

And then he did his own song and it was really, he made it really clear to the jury who may or may not have been musicians.

They’re like, that sounds different than that.

Release, this is dismissed.

I think we went out, I went out of tension there.

No, but I like this.

So what is a song?

What is it that actually gets copyrighted?

Because it appears in so many different forms, right?

You could sing it playing at a piano, you could play it on a guitar, you can have a fully orchestrated recording session with studio musicians, but they’re all the same song.

Yes.

So ultimately, it is the song, like capital S song, right?

So your lyrics and your melody, and while you can’t copyright the chord progression, if your melody over those very basic chords is strikingly similar, like that is your case for copyright infringement.

But otherwise, yeah, your lyrics to the song are copyrightable, and the melody is copyrightable, and of course, the arrangement itself also.

If you’re like, this is a specific arrangement of a piece.

So this actually is more relevant probably to the conversation we’re having.

Yeah, we’re bringing it back.

Let’s bring it back in.

So if you make a bossa nova arrangement of a song from the musical Hamilton to be played by a jazz band, like you made it one, you need permission to do that.

I’m just going to, let’s just assume the permission has been requested and granted.

And so you make the-

Lin-Manuel’s on board.

Yeah, he’s on board.

And once you have that permission, you have your arrangement, then you’ve made your arrangement and that is your copyrighted arrangement of the piece.

But the publisher still owns, like because again, it’s the words and the melody, right?

The words and melodies still exist in your very different arrangement of the piece, right?

And so because you’re arranging it in a very different way, you need permission.

And then when your version of it is performed in a school or by an orchestra, then you’re being compensated as the arranger of this very specific piece as well as the original composer and publisher of the piece.

So everyone’s compensated.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

So you need permission to arrange it in a very different way.

And then you have that in fixed form and you need permission if you wanted to, for say, sell it.

It is completely at the discretion of the publisher whether they want to allow you to sell that.

So the terms of an arrangement license, like when you would go to Lin-Manuel Miranda and get permission for this bossa nova arrangement, are those terms coming from the copyright code or is it coming from just the inherited contract that publishers have used over the last 50 years?

I mean, there’s certain terms that I see coming from different publishers.

It appears to me like that’s the industry standard.

I don’t know if there was actually like a meeting in a smoke-filled room somewhere where they all sat down and decided, we’re going to do three-year terms for everything, right?

But I guess when you’re starting out as an arranger, it’s hard to know what are things that are put in a contract because it is copyright law and that is how it’s going to be, and what is put in a contract because that’s what the publisher wants, and they get to set the terms because it’s their work.

A lot of it is the latter, and each publisher will have different terms, and sometimes those terms are determined by the publisher, and sometimes they’re determined by the songwriter, the composer, and absolutely a mix of the two.

There are certain things that are just understood about copyright law.

Again, this is how we interpret the law, but you can also, as an individual, decide that you can create something and put it into creative commons, so that people can do whatever they want with it.

But you, it’s at the copyright holder’s discretion, which is the joy and the beauty of copyright law, right?

That I, as a creator, can determine what I want done with my music.

I don’t think anyone on the creative side learns how to handle this stuff in school.

I certainly didn’t, as a composer.

Like, I didn’t learn about contracts and what things you should negotiate for and all that kind of stuff.

So what’s your advice to independent composers that don’t have an agent, that don’t have a legal team to go through all this stuff?

Like, what are the basics of what you should look out for and how do you educate yourself on those matters?

I mean, this is one of the reasons why organizations like MPA are important.

And there’s a lot of associations, not only for publishers, but songwriters, where they have a lot of informational sessions that help to educate on things like this.

But I think there’s also a social aspect that is really important, that you need to talk to your friends, you need to talk to your colleagues.

Like, X company is asking me to do why?

Like, is that right?

That seems weird to me.

Like, you can’t Google it because you’re not going to get the, or like you can Google it until you find the answer that you want.

It’s not necessarily the right answer.

You know what I mean?

Like, I think it’s really important to talk to other people, and that’s the best way to educate yourself.

And to that end also, I think there’s this, historically, this feeling of competition amongst your peers, even people you love, you consider them friends in the sense of competition.

And I don’t think that serves anybody.

I think it’s really important that, like, you know, you talk to people who are doing the same thing, not even, like, the same thing.

You know what I mean?

It’s just this idea that we don’t want to talk about money.

You know, as artists, we’re uncomfortable with that conversation.

And what if I tell them I got 5% and they got 6%?

Like, whoa, you know, like, I don’t know.

I think we’re in our heads about this.

Yeah, and well, that’s a great point, though, is that, like, and again, this is my opinion as, like, Brittain Ashford, the musician, artist, definitely, like, this is, I’m not saying this with, like, my business hat on, that I do think it’s really important that people talk about these things, because that’s how we discover discrepancies that are unfair, especially for people who don’t know, because we don’t teach it, we don’t teach people going through school how to talk about money, how to ask for money.

There’s also this idea of a starving artist that we should be grateful for anything that we’re given, and you take what you can get and you build your career.

While some of that is true, you do need to build your career, and you do need to make those stepping stones to get what you quote unquote deserve.

It’s like, if the work has value, then you should be compensated.

There’s no reason why one artist should be making substantially more apart from notoriety.

I get that.

If someone’s mega famous, and you’re using them and it helps promote your brand, we see this all the time with the actors.

There’s a reason.

You get butts in the seats.

You get butts in the seats.

Yeah, that’s it.

So the way copyright was explained to me is that it’s a bundle of sticks, and each stick represents a different part of what you can do with that song.

There’s the ability to make a recording.

There’s an ability to put it to video, sync it.

There’s the public performance stick.

There’s the displaying lyrics on a screen stick.

There’s all these different things that you can do with a song.

Hang with me.

My question is, are all of those rights that are inherent in a copyright, do they all have equal weight or is one of them prioritized over another?

Is your ability to record a song, is that greater or does that take precedence over the ability to publicly perform it or even to create sheet music?

That’s a great question and I don’t think that there’s a single answer in that.

I think it really depends on the scope and purpose of the song in the first place.

The monetary value is certainly different.

Yeah, because the potential for compensation is different.

If you make a CD and you’re selling it, again, that’s just like something that I actually love about a mechanical rate is that it is what it is and it’s compulsory.

So it’s like if you want to cover song, you get permission to do it and I forget what the rate is.

The rate just went up and that’s exciting.

It’s like approximately 10 cents per song, per unit.

Double digits.

Yes, we made it.

Finally.

It used to be like what?

Like 9.7 cents and now it’s gone up or it’s about to go up and then it’s going to go up again.

There’s like three tiers, which for however many people are making physical products, it’s still something.

Yeah.

Okay.

This is a deep philosophical question.

But compared to other parts of the music industry or the entertainment industry at large, sheet music is like a very small portion, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

So because it’s so small relative to other areas, how do we convince lawmakers that it’s important to address our needs?

Because there are things in the copyright code that could be changed that could benefit us.

There’s things like you said, pertaining to rates and royalties and that sort of thing.

How do we get people to care about our issues when compared to other parts of the industry, it seems not as significant?

Sure.

I mean, I think this is with anything you care about, it’s like how loud can you be about it?

Volume often is inherently tied to size, right?

So the bigger you are, the more noise you can make, which again is why organizations like MPA are important.

If we have right now, I think like 60 members, and so when we appeal to Congress about something, like there have been instances where we write about, there was a bill that was going through about just money to education for the arts.

So we as an organization, we write and we say music is the fundamental backbone of our society.

The arts are a fundamental backbone of American society.

At this point in time, it’s like our one true export, right?

It’s fostering both our young minds and our artists as imperative to our future as a nation, right?

They’re signed on behalf of X number of our members, and the higher that number, the better it looks.

Again, they may not know, they may not understand, honestly.

They might see the major music publishers have more weight.

Certainly, what we’re seeing right now with like Universal Music Group and like TikTok, like that’s big and Universal Music Group can put that pressure on a company like TikTok because they’re a giant.

Versus like, if I was like, I’m taking my music off TikTok, TikTok doesn’t care, but they care about other artists that are in that very large catalog.

So it’s like, the more noise you can make, the better, which sometimes you make that as by being a giant behemoth of a company.

And sometimes you make it by a lot of smaller companies coming together, or a mixture of small and big companies.

In the case of the MPA, we are large companies and small companies.

We all band together because we all have the same goal, which is fairness in our corner of the industry.

Yeah.

All right.

Let’s be nerds for a little bit, as if we haven’t already been nerdy enough.

Have there been any cases about sheet music that have gone to the Supreme Court?

Yes.

Really, the mother of all copyright, as we understand it, stems from a 1908 Supreme Court case, which was a White-Swiss Music Publishing Company versus Apollo Company.

Spoiler, this is about player pianos.

That’s the Supreme Court case that’s sort of where we get most of our copyright law from that really was not, we didn’t really address it again until the 70s.

But at the time, the court erroneously sided with the piano companies.

It’s funny, because the thing that they said was, humans can’t read player piano roles like they would read sheet music, right?

Humans aren’t reading the player piano roles, so they are actually copies.

The copies, no, and as a result, the publishers and the composers weren’t getting royalties for these player piano roles.

And so, you know, you got it like a year later, Congress overturns that.

And that’s where we get our compulsory license.

So that just made it so that like any musician could copy another musician’s song and just pay the rate.

There was like a standardized rate.

It’s also, again, like what I said earlier, that’s why we have the term mechanical, like as I meant, like physically copying the thing.

Again, at the time when we’re talking about sheet music, but now, of course, it’s like it’s CDs, it’s LPs and stuff like that.

Are there any laws on the books that actually reference sheet music like with the words, or is it all just like derivative works and, and like catch all language?

I think it’s, yeah, it’s, it’s legal, it’s legally coded language.

You know, again, like the work, capital W, the work, the composition.

Again, I think like the, as the law defines it, it’s like the composition is copyrighted.

Awesome.

Well, this has been a really fun conversation for me.

I like going down the, you know, the rabbit holes and the tangents about copyright.

It’s fascinating to me.

Where can our listeners find you?

Where can they find the MPA?

Anything you want to plug before you go?

No, just, you know, there’s a lot of information on our website and that’s www.mpa.org.

And yeah, that’s kind of it.

You know, there’s a lot of information there.

And of course, if you have a question following, you know, listening to this podcast, you can always shoot us a message via the website.

Fantastic.

Well, thank you again.

This was really fun.

Yeah.

Thanks, Garrett.