Mechanical Licensing

HFA and Mechanical Licensing

Mechanical licensing is the licensing of copyrighted musical compositions for use on CDs, records, tapes, and certain digital configurations. HFA was established as an agency to license, collect, and distribute royalties on behalf of musical copyright owners. If you would like to make less than 2,500 copies of your recording as either physical products (CDs, cassettes, and vinyl) or permanent digital downloads, we suggest you request your licenses using HFA Songfile. If you plan on making more than 2,500 copies, please open an HFA Licensing Account.

Licensees with established HFA Licensing Accounts can also register to use HFA's online licensing system, eMechanical. Click here for more details.

If you have an HFA Licensing Account, you can use the HFA Royalty Reporting Form for your quarterly reporting and payment of mechanical royalties. If you are interested in reporting digitally, please contact HFA Publisher Services.

For current royalty rate information, please review the Statutory Royalty Rates page. Please note that a mechanical license does not include the right to reproduce an already existing sound recording. That is a separate right, called a Master Use Right, which must be procured from the copyright owner of such sound recording.

HFA issues mechanical licenses that are valid for products manufactured and distributed in the U.S. (including its territories and possessions), or from computer servers located in the U.S. and its territories and possessions, only. Mechanical licenses are available only to U.S. manufacturers or importers with U.S. addresses.

Note: An HFA mechanical license does not include the right to display or reprint lyrics or the right to print sheet music. Nor does it cover any use of the song or lyrics in karaoke or "CD+G" products. For these rights, you must contact the publisher(s) directly.

Mechanical Licensing Laws

Under the U.S. Copyright Act, the right to use copyrighted, non-dramatic musical works in the making of phonorecords for distribution to the public for private use is the exclusive right of the copyright owner. However, the Act provides that once a copyright owner has recorded and distributed such a work to the U.S. public or permitted another to do so, a compulsory mechanical license is available to anyone else who wants to record and distribute the work in the U.S. upon the payment of license fees at the statutory "compulsory" rate as set forth in Section 115 of the Act.

Mechanical Licensing Forms