On February 13, 1914, the American Society of Composers, Authors
and Publishers (ASCAP) was founded to help music creators make
a living from their work.

“If music did not pay, it would be given up.” So wrote Associate
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in a landmark Supreme Court
decision in 1917.

Holmes wasn’t referring to musicians themselves in that statement,
but to places of business in which copyrighted musical works could
be heard, whether such music was live or recorded—and, critically, whether or not it generated direct revenues. “Whether it pays or not,” continued Holmes, “the purpose of employing it is profit and that is enough.” Narrowly speaking, the decision in Herbert v. Shanley Co. forced Shanley’s Restaurant in New York City to pay a fee to the American songwriter Victor Herbert for playing a song of his on a
player-piano during dinner service. The case represented a much broader victory, however, for the new musicians’ advocacy
organization of which Herbert was the head: ASCAP.

Among the founding members of ASCAP were the musical giants
of the day: Irving Berlin, James Weldon Johnson, Jerome Kern
and John Philip Sousa.

Victor Herbert, on piano stool, poses with the founding
members of ASCAP in 1914. (Courtesy ASCAP)