Harry Fox Agency
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| Abbreviation | HFA |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1927 |
| Type | Profit |
| Headquarters | New York City, United States |
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Parent organization
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The Blackstone Group |
| Website |
www hfaslingshot songfile |
The Harry Fox Agency (HFA) is a provider of rights management and collector and distributor of mechanical license fees on behalf of music publishers in the United States. HFA has over 48,000 music publishing clients and issues the largest number of licenses for physical and digital formats of music. It was founded in 1927 by the National Music Publishers Association. The agency was sold to performing rights organization SESAC in 2015, which was itself acquired by The Blackstone Group in 2017.
HFA provides the following services to its affiliated publishers:
Songfile is an online mechanical licensing tool designed for the D.I.Y music industry market. It allows the public to search through over millions of songs and purchase licenses. A mechanical license is needed if one wants to manufacture and distribute recordings that he or she did not write. Through Songfile, licenses can be obtained for physical works, permanent digital downloads (PDDs), ringtones, and interactive streaming distribution. Users pay a low per-song processing fee and royalties for licenses, which are set at the current U.S. statutory rate.
Slingshot is HFA's rights management solutions that helps digital music providers manage their licenses. In 2008 HFA began to offer business solutions that enable licensing of content to accelerate speed to market and boost profitability for traditional music licensees such as record labels and distributors as well as non-traditional entrants into the music space such as marketing, advertising and technology firms. Services include end-to-end support for: Licensing, Database Management, Royalty Services, Content Consulting, and Auditing.
In October 2012, HFA became involved with copyright claims of musical works in the public domain on YouTube. As the designated YouTube administrator for thousands of music publishers, HFA uses the Content Management System (CMS) to review YouTube user disputes for the use of song compositions protected under copyright law. Many arrangements of public domain works are under copyright, even if the original is not, and because the CMS tool is not perfect, some false disputes are created.
One notable case, via YouTube, was a claim over Johann Strauss's Radetzky March. A questionable dispute was instated for a Thai youth orchestra’s performance of the Radetzky March under the direction of S. P. Somtow. Although the march has been in the public domain since at least 1949, another arrangement still under copyright was mistakenly identified by YouTube’s audio fingerprinting program. HFA worked directly with Somtow Sucharitkil to release the claim.
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