ASCAP spreads its message of fair payment for songwriters and composers further than ever. Our Pandora campaign calls out the streaming music giant for trying to pay writers less; Josh Kear, Paul Williams and Jimmy Webb speak out in The Huffington Post and The Hill; we bring Kear, Ne-Yo and Dan Wilson to DC to convince lawmakers of the importance of online royalties and copyright reform to their livelihoods. Pictured (l-r) are Wilson and Kear at an advocacy event in DC.

In one of the most entertaining panels in ASCAP "I Create Music" EXPO history, Justin Timberlake and Bill Withers share the EXPO's Grand Ballroom stage on April 24th. The two speak candidly and swap stories about their lives and music careers in this quintessential "only at the EXPO" session. Photo by Rick Miller/MRES Photography.

ASCAP establishes a Bill of Rights for Songwriters & Composers and publishes its powerful position paper, Music Copyright in the Digital Age. The Bill of Rights has received over 13,000 signatures so far. Read and sign it at www.ascap.com/rights.

ASCAP gives its first Troubadour Award to the great Stevie Wonder in 2007. The award is bestowed at ASCAP’s exclusive annual "Songwriter Night" in Washington, DC, and accompanied by a tribute concert featuring Tony Bennett, Smokey Robinson, India.Arie, Wyclef Jean, Joan Osborne, Chaka Khan and Dianne Reeves. Stevie is pictured here with Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and Congressman John Conyers, Jr. at the event.

ASCAP holds its first "I Create Music" EXPO in Los Angeles. Among the many music luminaries that participate in the inaugural EXPO is Tom Petty, an ASCAP member since 1981. He's shown here with ASCAP's Erik Philbrook during the EXPO's first keynote interview. The ASCAP EXPO continues to educate and inspire the music community today: ascap.com/expo

R&B luminaries Jermaine Dupri and Alicia Keys share Songwriter of the Year honors at the 2005 Rhythm & Soul Awards. Just a few months earlier, Keys had earned four Grammys and Dupri was honored with the Golden Note at the 2005 ASCAP Pop Awards. Keys would win the Golden Note in 2009.

An unsigned Las Vegas band called The Killers performs at the annual ASCAP CMJ showcase. Two days later, they sign to Island; they go on to sell millions of albums and earn seven Grammy nominations. Frontman Brandon Flowers reminisces: “When record labels were not willing to step up, ASCAP took us under their wing.” Here they are at the 2010 ASCAP Pop Awards, where they were honored with the Vanguard Award.

Here's Tom Waits in performance at the 2001 Pop Awards, where he received the ASCAP Founders Award. An excerpt from his acceptance speech: “To say a few serious things about songs, I guess they’re really like vessels. When people migrate, they take with them their seeds and their songs, and I think that’s pretty much all you’ll need when you get there.” Click the video link to watch part of the speech.

The same year her R&B group Destiny's Child releases its first album, future superstar Beyoncé Knowles makes ASCAP her performing rights organization of choice.

ASCAP officially launches its Member Benefits program. The first offering was a credit union membership. It's since grown to include insurance options, travel discounts, magazine subscriptions, online education discounts and more. Some Member Benefits partners used to require ASCAP members to present their official membership card. Here's John Belushi's card from 1975 - the same year he joined the cast of Saturday Night Live.

Composer Fred Karlin founds the ASCAP TV & Film Scoring Workshop. The program gives young composers access to the same tools and contacts afforded the professionals, including a cue recorded by a 60-piece orchestra. Graduates have scored major films, TV series and video games. Several have won Emmys and BAFTAs. Pictured are the participants and orchestra from the 25th anniversary Workshop in 2013.

ASCAP holds its first Pop Music Awards, initiating a tradition that has become one of the Society's most star-studded events. The first ASCAP Pop Songwriter of the Year is Lionel Richie, pictured here at the inaugural Pop Awards with (l-r) Henry Mancini, Kenny Rogers, Hal David and Marilyn and Alan Bergman. Richie would win again in 1985 and 1986, and come back at the milestone 25th Pop Awards to earn the Golden Note Award.

The same year she releases her debut album (with its infectious first single "Everybody"), a young New York singer and dancer named Madonna Ciccone becomes an ASCAP member.

After touring as Bob Dylan's band in the late 1960s, The Band, featuring (l-r) Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson and Robbie Robertson, set off on their own musical journey. Their debut album, Music from Big Pink, established their sound evoking old time rural America, and earned them a growing following. Their second self-titled album was a critical and commercial success and featured the song "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," which became a hit for Joan Baez.

Singer, songwriter and musician Jimi Hendrix is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music. With the Jimi Hendrix Experience, he released three extraordinary albums in 1967 and 1968: Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold as Love and Electric Ladyland, immortalizaing such songs as "Hey Joe," "Purple Haze" and "The Wind Cries Mary," among others. A year after joining ASCAP, he headlined the Woodstock Festival.  

The Doors were vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger. They unleashed their debut album in 1967 and rock music would never be the same. They quickly became one of the most controversial and influential rock acts of their time because of the band's unique instrumentation and Morrison's wild charisma. Their first album was just one in a series that would reach the top ten.  

Lyricist Hal David (left) and composer Burt Bacharach began collaborating in the late 1950s. As they honed their craft they brought a new sophistication to the Brill Building sound of the mid 1960s with their songs for Dionne Warwick, their greatest interpreter. They would go on to become one of history's greatest songwriting teams. America's musical tastes expanded in diverse directions in the '60s, from Britpop to Broadway show tunes to jazz instrumentals.

To better serve ASCAP's growing country music membership, ASCAP opened a southern regional office building in "Music City" in 1963. Here is a photo of the original ASCAP building on Music Row. It would serve ASCAP's Nashville community for 30 years until a new structure would go up on the same location in 1992. Among the many country greats who were signed through that office were Johnny Cash, Lyle Lovett, Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Reba McEntire and so many more.

ASCAP member Chubby Checker's 1960 cover of the Hank Ballard R&B hit "The Twist" was a smash, launching a dance craze and a thirst for more dance-driven songs. The following year, Checker followed up that success with "Let's Twist Again," written by Kal Mann and Dave Appell. The song won the Grammy Award for Best Rock and Roll Song. That same year, ASCAP opened its LA office. This video shows audiences twisting across America to Checker's classic recording.

To show his support for ASCAP and its members, Ed Sullivan began making yearly salutes to the Society on his program. The first time he did so was in January of 1956, when the impressive list of guests on the show included Jack Norworth and Cab Calloway. Later ASCAP tributes featured the likes of theatre director Moss Hart (far left), Kitty Carlisle, and Liberace (far right) with then ASCAP President Stanley Adams and Sullivan (center).

One of ASCAP's most unique members, cartoonist, artist, engineer, songwriter and inventor Rube Goldberg (yes, of "Rube Goldberg machine" fame) was a great advocate of music creators' rights. In 1958, he made headlines when he teamed up with former ASCAP president Otto Harbach to draw a political cartoon criticizing a loophoole in copyright law that forbade artists to collect royalties from jukebox profits. Unfortunately, the two were unsuccessful, and the law was not revised until 1978.

In 1952 theatre-goers were treated to Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly on the big screen in the classic Western drama High Noon. The film tells the story of a town marshall forced to face a gang of killers by himself. It won four Academy Awards and two Golden Globes. The score was composed by Dimitri Tiomkin, who also co-wrote the theme song with lyricist Ned Washington. Both the score and theme song won Oscars. 

A picture of ASCAP’s old index department. After listening to hours-long tapes of radio recordings from across the nation to search for ASCAP songs, staffers then had to sift through licensing data to ensure that royalties could be properly distributed to songwriter, composer and music publisher members. Today ASCAP processes more than 250 billion performances annually.

Young Otto Harbach (right) fell in love with librettos and abandoned his literary career to become a songwriter. He wrote over 50 musical comedies and became a charter member of ASCAP, eventually serving as the Society's fifth President from 1950-1953. Harbach is pictured here with ASCAP’s sixth President, Stanley Adams.

By the end of the 1940s, ASCAP was processing an ever-increasing amount of data. In response, ASCAP created a "tabulating department," the forerunner of the state of the art data center ASCAP utilizes today. In 1949, ASCAP began licensing a brand new music user - television - which remains a major force in performance royalties today. In 2012, ASCAP collected more than $308 million from its TV and Cable licensees.

A songwriter with a background in law and music publishing, Fred E. Ahlert was an integral part of the ASCAP team during his 30 year career. He went on to serve as President for two years, 1948-1950. Ahlert is credited with writing "Mean to Me," "Walkin' My Baby Back Home," "I'll Get By" and "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter," among others.

Composer Deems Taylor was elected ASCAP President in 1942 and served for six years, a time when the Society faced new competition from BMI and a Justice Department Consent Decree which ASCAP had accepted in 1941. A music critic and radio host, Taylor also narrated Walt Disney's 1940 animated film Fantasia. The ASCAP Deems Taylor Awards, honoring music books, articles and broadcasts, was established in 1968 in his name.

In 1945, ASCAP member Aaron Copland's famous piece of Americana, "Appalachian Spring," won the Pulitzer Prize in the music category. The piece was commissioned by choreographer Martha Graham, who requested "music for an American ballet" from Copland. Originally titled "Music for Martha," it was Graham who envisioned the Appalachian Mountains while listening to the piece and gave it its name.

On the Town got its start in 1944 as a Jerome Robbins ballet called Fancy Free, which used Leonard Bernstein's music. It subsequently evolved into a Broadway musical with music by Bernstein and lyrics by the talented songwriting team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Pictured (l-r) are actress Alice Walker, Bernstein, Green and Comden backstage. The show was later made into a beloved musical film in 1949.  

Cab Calloway, who joined ASCAP in 1942, was a songwriter, jazz singer and bandleader most associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem. A master of scat singing, Calloway also led one of the most popular big bands in the country from the start of the 1930s through the late '40s. In 1988, ASCAP presented him with its Duke Ellington Award. Here is a video of Cab with his orchestra appearing in the 1943 film Stormy Weather.

As World War II continued to rage, military themes became more and more prevalent in popular culture. "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" was co-written by Don Raye and Hughie Prince during a peacetime draft to expand the armed forces in anticipation of American involvement. The Andrews Sisters introduced the song in the Abbott and Costello film, Buck Privates, released in 1941.The hit became an iconic World War II tune.

In 1940, ASCAP presented a concert at San Francisco's Treasure Island, highlighting great American music from the turn of the century up to that point. An incredible array of ASCAP writer and composer members took part in the concert, including Harold Arlen, who accompanied Judy Garland on "Over the Rainbow," as well as Hoagy Carmichael, Irving Berlin, W.C. Handy, Jerome Kern, Johnny Mercer and Deems Taylor.  

Thanks to the ubiquitous singing cowboy movies of the 1930s, starring Gene Autry (pictured), Roy Rogers, Sons of the Pioneers, Tex Ritter and Johnny Marvin, cowboy songs became part of the national fabric. Autry was not only an accomplished actor and vocalist but also a songwriter who reigned on the radio, in movies and on television for more than three decades. His original songs include "Back in the Saddle Again," "Blue Canadian Rockies" and "Here Comes Santa Claus," among others.

In 1936, another group of prominent ASCAP members traveled to DC to speak out on behalf of their fellow music creators, a tradition and a need that remains ongoing. This photo shows musical leaders of their day testifying at a Congressional hearing. Pictured (l-r) are superstar crooner Rudy Vallée, legendary songwriters Irving Berlin and George Gershwin and ASCAP President Gene Buck, who served from 1924 to 1942.

Throughout the 1930s, ASCAP's licensing efforts intensified. In 1933, ASCAP opened its first general licensing office in Charlotte, North Carolina. Here is a reproduction of an ASCAP license signed by a Des Moines, Iowa ballroom in 1936. Today, ASCAP has more than 700,000 licensed customers, and licensing representatives who cover every region of the country.

After Mitchell Parish added his poignant, poetic lyrics to the 1927 melody by Hoagy Carmichael (pictured), "Stardust" sailed into immortality, becoming one of the most recorded and performed songs of all time, with more than 1,500 recordings to date.

Lyricist Dorothy Fields was one of the first successful Tin Pan Alley and Hollywood female songwriters. Her career took off in 1928 when she collaborated with composer Jimmy McHugh on Blackbirds of 1928, which featured the now beloved standard “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love.” The pair would go on to write several other classics, including "I'm In the Mood for Love" and “On the Sunny Side of the Street.”

Composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Lorenz Hart would go on to become giants of musical theatre, contributing such monumental standards as "My Funny Valentine," "Blue Moon," "Where or When," "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered," "The Lady is a Tramp" and so many others. They worked together on 28 stage musicals and more than 500 songs until their legendary partnership ended with the premature passing of Hart in 1943.

W.C. Handy was widely known as "Father of the Blues." He was influential in taking the blues from a regional style with a small audience to a musical style that became a major national force. ASCAP member Bessie Smith was one of the most popular female blues singers of the 1920s and 1930s. Her version of Handy's "St. Louis Blues" is a powerful reminder of why she has influenced generations of jazz vocalists.

As the Roaring Twenties dawned, music boomed. After initiating the momentous task of licensing US restaurants, hotels, nightclubs and anywhere else a performance of music was likely, ASCAP makes its first royalty distribution to its writer and publisher members. In 2012, ASCAP distributed $828.7 million to its members.

ASCAP and PRS (Britain's Performing Rights Society) sign the first agreement for representation of ASCAP members abroad. Today, ASCAP has reciprocal agreements with more than 100 countries.

On February 13th, 1914, at the Hotel Claridge in NYC, a group of prominent, visionary music creators founded ASCAP. Pictured here a few years later are ASCAP composer Victor Herbert (seated) with other charter members (l-r): Gustave Kerker, Raymond Hubbell, Harry Tierney, Louis A. Hirsch, Rudolf Friml, Robert Hood Bowers, Silvio Hein, Alfred Baldwin Sloane and Irving Berlin. ASCAP's first president was publisher George Maxwell.