Mondo Knows Facts
Composers organised a collecting society in 1914
ASCAP gathered licence fees from venues and split them among members Before collective licensing, a songwriter had to track down every performance personally. Broadcasters later formed a rival body, and similar societies exist in most countries. The model still bothers venues, and it still pays writers. It sits in Mondo's music collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
Where this comes from
Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
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Tags: copyright, history, industry
Composers organised a collecting society in 1914: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- ASCAP gathered licence fees from venues and split them among members. The figure is taken from Library of Congress, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a music fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Music shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.