Chapter 4: Tin Pan Alley
Throughout the 19th century, American copyright law was inconsistent and poorly enforced. Composers had little legal protection and often lacked ownership or control over their work. It was common for multiple publishers to print and sell the same songs, often with different cover art, without compensating the original songwriter. This lack of regulation left many composers vulnerable to exploitation.
This began to change in the early 20th century with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1909, which was signed into law by President Theodore Roosevelt and enacted on March 4, 1909. The act granted legal protection to published works that included a proper copyright notice and offered limited protection to unpublished works under state law. Works published without such notice immediately entered the public domain. The new law gave composers and publishers greater control over their music. It established an initial copyright term of twenty-eight years with the possibility of a twenty-eight-year renewal. Importantly, it gave authors the right to terminate a transfer of copyright between the initial and renewal periods, helping to rebalance control between creators and companies.
One of the act’s most consequential provisions was the introduction of the first compulsory mechanical license. This allowed others to reproduce a copyrighted musical composition on phonographs or piano rolls without the copyright owner's permission, provided they followed specific legal procedures and paid set royalties. Royalties are ongoing payments made to composers or rights holders each time a work is reproduced, performed, or sold, ensuring that creators are compensated for the continued use of their music. This system helped standardize royalties and incentivized cooperation between songwriters and publishers. As a result, composers could begin earning more consistent income from their work, and publishers had legal grounds to defend their catalogs.
The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) was founded in 1914 to protect the rights of composers, lyricists, and music publishers. Its main purpose was to ensure that songwriters were fairly compensated when their music was performed publicly in theaters, restaurants, hotels, and eventually on radio and television. ASCAP pioneered the model of a performance rights organization (PRO), an entity that collects licensing fees from venues and broadcasters who publicly use music and then distributes those fees as royalties to composers and publishers. This system replaced the chaotic, case-by-case permissions of the past with a more standardized and enforceable model. Venues and radio stations could pay a blanket license to legally use the entire ASCAP catalog, and creators were paid based on how frequently their works were performed. In doing so, ASCAP helped define modern professional standards for the music industry. It strengthened the idea that composers should earn income not just when a song was sold but every time it was performed publicly. This approach provided a new stream of consistent revenue for songwriters and contributed to the long-term sustainability of music as a profession.