Mechanical Royalties Suffer

U.S. music rights licensing organization The Harry Fox Agency, Inc. (HFA), announced today that its 2008 royalty collections from all sources was $307.1 million, a 22% decline from 2007. Also in 2008, HFA issued over 2.44 million mechanical licenses, a 62% increase over 2007. Digital downloads also increased, by almost 47% over 2007, bringing the total number of licenses under HFA’s administration to over 16.7 million. The company represents over 37,000 publishing clients, with nearly 2.3 million songs available for licensing.

“2008 was another tough year for the music industry, and HFA was no exception,” said Gary Churgin, HFA President & CEO. “The decline in the market had slowed in 2007, but in 2008, as the overall economy suffered, we saw the effects on the music sector accelerate. The growth of digital sales, while still robust, is also slowing, so we do not expect digital to offset the losses of CD sales any time soon.”