Not at all, Jay! Thanks for the questions. HFA is a liaison between record labels and third parties that release copyrighted material from publishers. If your material was not being released commercially by a label or another third party – there would be no need for HFA to step in and collect mechanicals. For example, if you were to self-release an album of your original songs, as your own record label, you would have to pay mechanical license fees to your publishing company (or dba) to reproduce those songs in album form. In theory, you’d be paying yourself. HFA wouldn’t been involved. HFA will not deny your royalties, however they only work with and represent publishers. So, if you have a track on an album that was commercially released – and you'd like to handle collection yourself - we’d highly recommend creating a publishing company (or dba) and affiliating with HFA so you can collect those royalties. As an OP, Songtrust (and all publishing companies for that matter) are entitled to claim and collect the publisher’s share on behalf of their writers. This capacity doesn’t automatically grant the publisher the right hold on to that money or keep it. The true legality of ownership in publishing comes down to the agreements between the publishers and individual writers. In all of Songtrust’s agreements, we pay 100% of all performance and mechanical royalties that are collected back to the songwriters and/or their individual publishing companies. Ultimately, Songtrust has been built to make life easier for songwriters. We're cutting down on the time and effort required to collect royalties with our one-stop service.

Harry Fox only works with publishing companies. Songwriters cannot affiliate with HFA unless it's through a publishing company or dba. That said, to affiliate with HFA, your publishing company must have had at least one song commercially released by a third party within the last twelve months. For many independent songwriters - such as Daniel Snyder - they do not meet these requirements. Songtrust acts as a publishing administrator for independent songwriters, giving them the ability to register all their songs with HFA.