In the late '30s, there was a certain amount of unpleasantness going on in Europe. But it was nothing compared to what was going on in radio broadcasting. And it all had to do with ASCAP.
ASCAP (the American Society of Com‧posers, Authors, and Publishers) is an umbrella association that sees to it that its members get their rightful royalties for song performances. It had been formed in 1914 (just prior to that other unpleasantness) by the top composers of the day, led by Victor Herbert. The copyright laws then in effect gave royalties to composers only when their works were performed "for profit". At the time, many restaurants had singing waiters and other forms of entertainment, for which they did not pay royalties. Their reasoning was that they didn't charge admission, and, therefore, they were giving a nonprofit service and didn't have to pay. ASCAP challenged, and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court, where Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes voiced the unanimous decision, "PAY!" (in slightly more elegant terms).
The Hotel and Restaurant Association immediately gave battle to ASCAP, threatening to cut the size of the orchestras (thereby throwing musicians out of work). This caused the Musicians' Federation to boycott ASCAP tunes, which in turn led many composers to flee ASCAP, fearing that their songs would never get played. When the situation was finally settled in 1921, ASCAP took on its next opponent.
The owners of movie theaters had always provided music for their patrons. Silent films were only silent in that there was no dialogue associated with the movie; the theater itself was filled with music throughout the film. Originally, larger theaters had a full orchestra playing along with the screen action and smaller ones had at least a piano player (organists came later). Once again the argument was that the music was incidental to the main reason that people came to the theater; once again the courts sided with ASCAP. (The theater owners countered by forming their own association, the Music Publishers Protective Association, which was successfully challenged by ASCAP as a monopolistic restraint of trade—and the theater owners ended up paying.)
ASCAP was riding high. So high that it started having delusions of how powerful it actually was. Only it knew what "good" music was, so "hillbilly" and "race" composers were mostly excluded. Royalties received were pooled and distributed to members by a complicated formula which took into account the importance of a composer, rather than the importance of what had been written. Thus, if you were a lucky new composer who had had three consecutive hits, you probably wouldn't receive as much as an old-timer who hadn't had a hit for years (but who was a "big name").
And now a new medium was the target—radio. The radio stations tried to wriggle out of paying (shouldn't the composers be honored to have their songs showcased on radio?), but fared no better than the rest: ASCAP licenses were granted to radio stations. At this point in our story, all these licenses were due to expire on December 31, 1940.
ASCAP wasn't waiting for the last minute to work on the license renewals. In mid-1938, preparation started. Every once in a while something would leak out: the rates would double or the rates would include extra payments to help finance ASCAP's court cases. And radio started to fight back. "We won't stand for any extortionary raises", went the cry. But ASCAP didn't listen (why should they? this was all the same old tune to them). Radio actually should have worried more than it did, since almost every song played over the airwaves was ASCAP-licensed (two exceptions were pre-1900 songs and those registered with another organization, SESAC (Society of European Songwriters and Composers), which was nowhere near as far-reaching as ASCAP).
On September 1, 1939, the war in Europe formally began. In that same month, war was declared against ASCAP at a meeting of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB). The most enduring legacy of that meeting was the mandate to set up an organization to compete with ASCAP, fixing royalties to no more than 50% of ASCAP's 1937 rates. The result, unveiled the following month, was Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI). Interestingly, at the same time it was set up, provisions were put in place for it to be dismantled if ASCAP came to its senses.
The NAB thought it would be difficult at the start to get composers to affiliate with BMI. Many of them came from the ranks of "hillbilly" and "race" composers; many others were just . . . well, just people. (Up till now, "people" didn't write "popular" songs, ASCAP composers did.) There were two incentives to join BMI: it would actually take you in, no matter what kind of music you wrote, and BMI had a fair royalty distribution schedule—songs with the most play would make their composers the most money, period.
One of BMI's biggest coups was to secure the defection of Ed Marks, one of the old-time ASCAP composers, and a fixture of Tin Pan Alley. The battle lines were drawn, but there was another fly in the ointment.
Hollywood, since the earliest days of the "talkies," had had a love affair with music. This reached such proportions that the studios had started buying up publishing houses. There came a time when Hollywood found itself holding the copyrights to a phenomenal number of songs. In fact, Warner Bros. alone controlled a majority vote on ASCAP's governing board. Thus, the ASCAP/BMI war was, in reality, a movie/radio war.
All through 1940, BMI songs were introduced to the radio-listening public—about half the songs heard that year were from BMI; one of them was a smash Ink Spots tune: "Do I Worry?". In this way, the nation was being prepared for the possibility that ASCAP songs would disappear from radio.
Finally the terms were given: in August 1940, ASCAP announced that the rates, beginning January 1, 1941, would double. The NAB was just as firm in saying "no". Thus, the new year began with no ASCAP tunes heard over the air-waves. ASCAP was in its glory. They knew that only they could turn out "good" music and that no one wanted to hear anything else. The public would rise up and demand that the NAB settle and get the right kind of music played again. Well, they would, wouldn't they? Wouldn't they? Say, where is that rising public?
It turned out that the public didn't care at all. The BMI tunes were just as good as the ASCAP ones (at least to the public's collective ear), and the NAB hung tough. When it was all over, after ten months, it was ASCAP that caved in; the rates on the new licenses were lower than they had been in 1939.
However, one of the truly heartbreaking casualties of the feud was a seal, a radio performer that had been trained to honk out a song on bicycle horns. Since the only tune the seal knew was registered with ASCAP, the act was out of business on the first day of the ban.
Over the next twenty years, ASCAP would try many times to destroy BMI, failing at every turn. ASCAP went to war over BMI's supposed closeness to radio station owners and also over Rock and Roll (whose music was mostly written by those upstarts at BMI; the only song they didn't condemn was "Rock Around The Clock", written by two ASCAP composers). While beyond the scope of this book, the war culminated with the famed disk jockey "payola" hearings of 1960.