Sorry.
Trying to copy those tiny words can be difficult!
Maybe I can type the correct link this time.

http://www.aracnet.com/~schorn/index.shtml

If the link doesn't work it can be accesed on Jeff Mallet's Web Site under Legal links. It may be Intellectal Property Resources.

Harry Fox does use the term on it's form: MECHANICAL LICENSE REQUEST. Harry Fox has been around since 1927 if I remember correctly.

You can split Frog Hairs all you want to but the term is about standard today. I have downloaded a few Publishers forms of which they use the term on the form: Mechanical license.

While it may never happen, or rarely, there are a lot of Record Labels out there in other parts of the country who may record a song to see if it can be released and pass on it but notify no one about it and who would know. Once again it is splitting Frog Hairs. A compulsory license is where someone wants to release a cover song but the publisher refuses to issue a (dang) mechanical license. Then they have to go thru the copyright office and obtain the license. There are restrictions in the compulsory license.

The truth is most of us will never have a song released anyway so this is all pretty moot.

Donald Passman says something to the effect that mechanical devices to reproduce music went out in the 1940's,when the Wind Up Victrola was in use and everything WAS mechanical. No amplification in those days! Anybody seen a Victrola lately?

Ray E. Strode