The ASCAP boycott was a 1941
boycott
A boycott is an act of nonviolent resistance, nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organisation, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for Morality, moral, society, social, politics, political, or Environmenta ...
of the
American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers
The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadc ...
(ASCAP) by radio broadcasters, due to license fees. From another perspective, it was a boycott of radio broadcasters by ASCAP, "concerned about the unlicensed radio broadcast of its members' material ..."
Causes of the boycott
Between 1931 and 1939, ASCAP increased royalty rates charged to broadcasters some 448%.
In 1940, when ASCAP tried to triple its license fees, radio broadcasters prepared to resist their demands by enforcing a boycott of ASCAP, and inaugurating a competing royalty agency,
Broadcast Music, Inc.
Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) is a performance rights organization in the United States. It collects blanket license fees from businesses that use music, entitling those businesses to play or sync any songs from BMI's repertoire of over 22.4 milli ...
(BMI).
It is currently the largest performing rights organization in the United States and one of the largest in the world.
Events of the boycott
During a ten-month period lasting from January 1 to October 29, 1941, no music licensed by ASCAP (1,250,000 songs) was broadcast on
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
or
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
radio stations. Instead, the stations played songs in the
public domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...
, regional music, and styles (like
rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated within African American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predomina ...
or country) that had been traditionally disdained by ASCAP, resulting in many classical compositions being recorded by the big bands.
Resolution
When the differences between ASCAP and the broadcasters were resolved, ASCAP agreed to settle for a lower fee than they had initially demanded.
Beneficiaries of the boycott
"
Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair
"Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair" is a parlor song by Stephen Foster (1826–1864), published by Firth, Pond & Co. of New York in 1854. Foster wrote the song with his estranged wife Jane McDowell in mind. The lyrics allude to a permanent sepa ...
", an 1854
song
A song is a musical composition performed by the human voice. The voice often carries the melody (a series of distinct and fixed pitches) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs have a structure, such as the common ABA form, and are usu ...
, was a notorious beneficiary of the ASCAP boycott. According to ''
Time
Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
'' magazine, "So often had BMI's Jeannie With the Light Brown Hair been played that she was widely reported to have turned grey."
Another beneficiary was
Glenn Miller
Alton Glen "Glenn" Miller (March 1, 1904 – December 15, 1944) was an American big band conductor, arranger, composer, trombonist, and recording artist before and during World War II, when he was an officer in the United States Army Air Forces ...
's "
Song of the Volga Boatmen
The "Song of the Volga Boatmen" (known in Russian as Эй, ухнем! y, ukhnyem!, "Yo, heave-ho!" after the refrain) is a well-known traditional Russian song collected by Mily Balakirev and published in his book of folk songs in 1866. It was ...
".
See also
*
List of boycotts
References
1941 in radio
1941 in the United States
1941 in American music
1941 protests
Boycotts of organizations
United States copyright law
American music industry
Boycott
A boycott is an act of nonviolent resistance, nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organisation, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for Morality, moral, society, social, politics, political, or Environmenta ...
Broadcast Music, Inc.
Glenn Miller
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