Music Publishers Association (UK)

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Music Publishers Association (UK)
IndustryMusic
Founded1881 (1881)
Headquarters
London
,
United Kingdom
Website www.mpaonline.org.uk

The Music Publishers Association (MPA) is a non-profit organisation representing music publishers in the United Kingdom since 1881. [1] It "exists to safeguard and promote the interests of music publishers and the writers signed to them; represent these interests to government, the music industry, the media and the public, provide publishers with a forum, a collective voice and a wide range of benefits, services and training courses; promote an understanding of the value of music and the importance of copyright; and provide information and guidance to members of the public". [2] The MPA is a member of the music industry umbrella organisation UK Music. [3]

Contents

History

The MPA was founded in 1881 as a way to protect and safeguard the interests of sheet music publishers. The founding members were:[ citation needed ]

  • Thomas Patey Chappell & Frank Chappell (Chappell & Co)
  • Emile Enoch (Enoch & Sons)
  • George Jeffreys (G F Jeffreys)
  • Henry Littleton
  • W Morley Jr
  • C H Purday (J B Cramer & Co)
  • Stroud L Cocks (R. Cocks & Co.)
  • Barnard Lucas

They were soon joined by Charles Boosey, Edwin Ashdown and George Patey. [1]

By 1887 the MPA had its own offices in Air Street, London. Over the years the offices have been situated in several London locations, most recently moving to British Music House in December 2005.

By 1905 the MPA had grown to 19 members and would continue to expand its membership to the present total of over 270 publishers handling over three thousand subsidiary companies, dealing in most musical genres.[ citation needed ]

In the fifties the MPA became involved in the introduction of the Ivor Novello Awards in 1956.[ further explanation needed ] A few years earlier in 1951 the MPA became a founder member of the British Joint Copyright Council (which would later become the British Copyright Council in 1965).[ citation needed ]

In 1976 the association acquired ownership of the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS).[ citation needed ]

The MPA was a founder member of British Music Rights (formed in 1996) together with the British Academy of Composers, Songwriters and Authors (BASCA), the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society and the Performing Right Society. In 2008 British Music Rights grew into an expanded body called UK Music. [1]

In October 2015 Jane Dyball was named CEO of MPA Group of Companies bringing together the MPA, Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS), Independent Music Publishers e-Licensing (IMPEL) and Printed Music Licensing Limited (PMLL) under one umbrella. [4]

In 2018 IMPEL became a standalone entity to focus on its independent members' interests.

Paul Clements (formally Executive Director of Membership, International & Licensing at PRS for Music) succeeded Jane Dyball as CEO on 1 February 2019.

MPA Group

The MPA currently owns and operates two commercial businesses: [2]

Conduct

International Music Score Library Project

In April 2011, the MPA issued a DMCA takedown notice against the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP), a publisher of public domain sheet music. Go Daddy, the domain name registrar for the IMSLP, removed the domain name "imslp.org", leaving it inaccessible. The MPA's argument was similar to that made in 2007 by Universal Edition. In particular, the MPA claimed that Rachmaninoff's 1913 choral symphony The Bells violated US and EU copyright. [5] According to IMSLP, the action is without any merit. [6] Almost 24 hours later, the MPA announced on Twitter that they had asked Go Daddy to reinstate the domain name. [7]

Hargreaves Review

The Hargreaves Review has made recommendations that include exemptions of copyright such as 'format shifting', where music users would be allowed to copy music from one format to another legally; for example, copying from CD to MP3 – an act that is technically illegal under UK law. The MPA has taken a firm stance[ further explanation needed ] against these recommendations. The MPA claims that this could cost publishers up to £40 million a year. [8] An explanation of why the customers of their members should pay an extra £40 million has not been given.

The Hargreaves Review also proposes an exemption for parodied works. This has also been fiercely opposed by the MPA.

Operation Creative

In August 2016 the MPA joined the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit's Operation Creative initiative in the fight against online music piracy. [9] [10]

Tony Pool Award

Created in 2018, The Tony Pool Award Award recognises and celebrates the achievements of those who have shown an outstanding contribution to the administrative areas of the music publishing industry.

The Tony Pool Award was created to recognise and applaud all those individuals that work in the "back office" areas of royalties, copyright, business affairs, finance, HR and IT for music publishers. While not in the spotlight, music publishing depends on this backbone to deliver its £505 million contribution to the UK economy.

The award is in memory of the late Tony Pool who died in 2016. Tony spent most of his working life with Boosey & Hawkes, eventually becoming Head of Business Affairs. He was a firm advocate of copyright reform and made a significant contribution to political discussions in the UK and in Europe. He also paved the way for the creation of British Music Rights.

MPA Richard Toeman Scholarship

Founded in 2006, the MPA Richard Toeman Scholarship is designed to:

The scholarship is in memory of the late Richard Toeman who died suddenly in March 2005 following a successful 40-year career at Josef Weinberger Ltd. Throughout his career, Richard generously gave his time and expertise to the MPA and to the music publishing business as a whole. He was admired and respected by colleagues working across all sectors of the industry. The MPA is proud to pay tribute to his considerable contribution to our work via the Richard Toeman Scholarship. [11]

Events

The MPA hosts a varied range of events for its members and the wider industry.

Related Research Articles

Copyrights can either be licensed or assigned by the owner of the copyright. A copyright collective is a non-governmental body created by copyright law or private agreement which licenses copyrighted works on behalf of the authors and engages in collective rights management. Copyright societies track all the events and venues where copyrighted works are used and ensure that the copyright holders listed with the society are remunerated for such usage. The copyright society publishes its own tariff scheme on its websites and collects a nominal administrative fee on every transaction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PRS for Music</span> British music rights society

PRS for Music Limited is a British music copyright collective, made up of two collection societies: the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) and the Performing Right Society (PRS). It undertakes collective rights management for musical works on behalf of its 160,000 members. PRS for Music was formed in 1997 following the MCPS-PRS Alliance. In 2009, PRS and MCPS-PRS Alliance realigned their brands and became PRS for Music.

A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset or a fixed price per unit sold of an item of such, but there are also other modes and metrics of compensation. A royalty interest is the right to collect a stream of future royalty payments.

The Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) is an organisation that collects royalties and protects rights for music publisher, song writer and composer members, when their music is reproduced, in any format – including online, physical and synchronised.

APRA AMCOS consists of Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) and Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS), both copyright management organisations or copyright collectives which jointly represent over 100,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers in Australia and New Zealand. The two organisations work together to license public performances and administer performance, communication and reproduction rights on behalf of their members, who are creators of musical works, aiming to ensure fair payments to members and to defend their rights under the Australian Copyright Act (1968).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Music Publishers Association</span>

The Music Publishers Association of the United States (MPA) is a non-profit music publishing organization based in New York City. Founded in 1895, the MPA is the oldest music trade organization in the United States which addresses issues pertaining to print publishing with an emphasis on copyright education and advocacy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of music publishing</span>

Music publishing is the business of creating, producing and distributing printed musical scores, parts, and books in various types of music notation, while ensuring that the composer, songwriter and other creators receive credit and royalties or other payment. This article outlines the early history of the industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Music Publishers' Association</span>

The National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA) is a trade association for the American music publishing industry. Founded in 1917, NMPA represents American music publishers and their songwriting partners. The NMPA’s mandate is to protect and advance the interests of music publishers and songwriters in matters relating to the domestic and global protection of music copyrights.

Public domain music is music to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply.

Production music is recorded music that can be licensed to customers for use in film, television, radio and other media. Often, the music is produced and owned by production music libraries.

Chappell & Co. was an English company that published music and manufactured pianos. Founded by pianist Samuel Chappell, the company was one of the leading music publishers and piano manufacturers in Britain until 1980 when Chappell sold its retail activities to concentrate solely on music publishing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Music Score Library Project</span> Project for the creation of a virtual library of public domain music scores

The International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP), also known as the Petrucci Music Library after publisher Ottaviano Petrucci, is a for-profit subscription-based digital library of public-domain music scores. The project uses MediaWiki software, and as of 24 November 2023 has uploaded more than 736,000 scores and 80,700 recordings by 1,900 performers of more than 226,000 works by 27,400 composers. IMSLP has both an iOS app and an Android app.

A music publisher is a type of publisher that specializes in distributing music. Music publishers originally published sheet music. When copyright became legally protected, music publishers started to play a role in the management of the intellectual property of composers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Warner Chappell Music</span> American music publishing company

Warner Chappell Music, Inc. is an American music publishing company and a subsidiary of the Warner Music Group. Warner Chappell Music's catalog consists of over 1.4 million compositions and 150,000 composers, with offices in over 40 countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital DJ licensing</span> Type of music licence

A digital DJ licence is required in some countries, including the United Kingdom, Finland, Belgium and Italy, to publicly play digital copies of copyrighted music. The licence allows a DJ to copy music from original CDs, vinyl or other media, to a computer's hard drive, an MP3 player or other digital audio players, for example to be used with a vinyl emulation software program, or in some cases to other digital media, such as CD-R or MiniDisc. In the countries where digital DJ licensing is used, the licence is also required for playing music originally bought and downloaded directly on to a computer, usually in MP3 or similar format, unless the licence of the online music store explicitly allows the public performance of the downloaded tracks.

Francis, Day & Hunter is a British music publishing company, one of the leading publishers of music hall songs and popular music in the late 19th and 20th centuries. It was established in London in 1877 as W. & J. Francis and Day, later Francis Brothers & Day, becoming Francis, Day & Hunter in 1880. It became a subsidiary of EMI Publishing in 1972.

The Independent Music Group or IMG is one of the UK's larger independent publishers.

John Truelove is an English record producer, DJ and music entrepreneur.

Jacqueline Alway OBE, professionally known as Jackie Alway, is a British-born music publishing executive. In 2019, she was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Our History".
  2. 1 2 About the MPA
  3. ↑ "Members - UK Music". www.ukmusic.org. Archived from the original on 24 May 2016.
  4. ↑ "Jane Dyball named permanent CEO of MPA Group of Companies - Music Business Worldwide". 27 October 2015.
  5. ↑ Text of the MPA's letter to Go Daddy
  6. ↑ "IMSLP Under Attack" by Carolus, IMSLP Forum (21 April 2011)
  7. ↑ Tweet by Will Lines, Music Publishers Association (UK) (22 April 2011)
  8. ↑ Music Week (2012) 'MPA weighs in on Copyright proposals'. 6 April 2012, p. 4.
  9. ↑ "MPA joins PIPCU's operation creative".
  10. ↑ "MPA joins PIPCU's Operation Creative | Complete Music Update".
  11. ↑ "Peermusic employee wins MPA scholarship | News | Music Week".
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