Mechanical/Compulsory Licenses

The history of copyright is interwoven in the documents and intents of the nations of the world, but it has its primary roots in England…and its primary development in the United States.

Two United States laws have given copyright its essential shape. The first was the Act of 1909, and the second the Act of 1976…which updated and reshaped the 1909 document. The Act of 1976 (with updates and revisions) is the law by which modern musicians and producers must govern their conduct, but it was the Act of 1909 that gave the music industry a key term…"mechanical licenses."

In the 1909 law, provision was made for copyright owners' rights to reproduce their songs on piano rolls, the first mechanical music reproduction machines. That law made it impossible for large companies to monopolize mechanical reproduction by stipulating that once a copyright owner had granted permission for the first recording of his song, any other person could record that song by paying a fee. That was the compulsory mechanical license law. The fee became known as the mechanical license fee.

The mechanical license law and the mechanical license fee became part of the Act of 1976. Musicians who produce piano rolls, tapes, CDs, or other "mechanical" recordings (collectively called "phonorecords") must abide by that law or subject themselves to the possibility of legal penalties.

Mechanical/Compulsory Rights:

• Recognize that copyright is actually a property right, and that copyright owners should be paid for the use of their property.
• Allow any person to obtain a license to make and distribute phonorecords of any song once that song has been recorded and distributed to the public in the United States under the authority of the copyright owner. NOTE: The purpose for making phonorecords must be to distribute them to the public for private use.
• Require that a "notice of intention" be served on the copyright owner "before or within thirty days" and "before distributing" such phonorecords
• Require that a fee (called a statutory fee, or a mechanical license fee) be paid to the copyright owner for every phonorecord made and distributed. As of January 1, 2006, that fee is 9.1 cents per song recorded if the song is five minutes or less in length, or 1.75 cents per minute for each recorded song that is longer than five minutes.
• Allow a licensee to distribute or authorize distribution of phonorecords by sale, rental, lease, or lending…but require that statutory fees be paid for each of those distributions.
• Specify that a phonorecord has been distributed "if the person exercising the compulsory license has voluntarily and permanently parted with its (the phonorecord) possession."