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Performance Rights Organizations Established After the Berne Convention of 1886
Although Foster sold some of his best songs outright, he has the distinction of being one of the first professional songwriters to demand and get songwriting royalties. At his peak, he actually made a living from sheet music royalties at a time when other songwriters relied on performance fees for their income.
In 1886, the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works internationalized this principle (since revised at least half a dozen times). This led to the establishment in France of the industry’s first performing rights organization. Italy, Spain, and Austria followed suit, all before 1900. The UK established a performing rights society in 1914 (PRS), the United States in 1917 (ASCAP).
The advent of recorded music in the form of piano rolls and gramophone records made it necessary, beginning with the Berlin Act of 1908 (part of the international Berne Convention), to recognize the right of songwriters to get paid for the “mechanical” distribution of their songs (mechanical right).
When radio broadcasting came along in the 1920s, performing rights were extended to include broadcast performances of songs, both live and recorded. This was an extension of the principle of getting paid for sheet music sales.
Today, the mechanical right extends to all “mechanical sound carriers”—CDs in record stores, songs used in movies and commercials, Internet-based song sales, and so on.
The medium that began it all—sheet music—doesn’t generate much revenue for songwriters anymore.