What is the HFA Affiliate Program - 5 Mins or Less

I'm not understanding why I need to affiliate with HFA when they work with the MLC. Or why HFA says i need to be a MLC member, while the MLC says I do not need to sign up with HFA.

thank you for what you do! I just applied to be an affiliate w/ HFA but I have not heard back yet & I have not registered any songs with HFA as of yet.
Since MLC does not take a % of royalties from artists-would I be better off signing my catalogue of songs up with MLC?
MLC did say that HFA handles other royalties (which I understand). Do you know if there is a way to have your catalogue registered w/ both MLC & HFA yet have MLC deal directly with me for the royalties from the DSP's that they are connected wtih so I get the full royalty? MLC on the phone said they prefer that the artist registers their catalogue w/ one or the other (MLC or HFA) so there is not confusion. thanks!!!

Hi Rene, thanks so much for a very concise and informative video. My question is: If I have registered with BMI as "Artist", and as "Publisher", but I've listed most of my songs under "Artist", then if I register with HFA and use my BMI Publishing account name, will it be a problem for me? For example my new song, which is one of the best, I listed on BMI under my name as "Artist", and I would like to register the new song with HFA. Probably lots of people are doing the same thing which might impact royalty collection. Thanks for any advice you might have.

Thank you very much for the good and helpful information. HFA’s website does not have information, for publishers who are a non affiliate publisher. It seems I’ve been on an email writing Merry-go-round with multiple Entities. I am very concerned that on Feb 8 2023 the MLC had a live information Zoom “for publishers” in which they told viewers that if you were already part of HFA you did not need to sign up with the MLC. (!?) ***They completely forgot about publishers who were already within HFA as non affiliate!!! Wow. I had been searching for information for how to add an additional publishing company to HFA, by searching their website, the internet and writing to HFA. It took awhile for my questions to be understood by HFA. I finally have been given the information for how to add another publisher account within HFA is to add the additional publishing entity as a sub publisher that pays up to my current publishing account within HFA and it is called an ‘obo’ (on behalf of). It seems I must collect information from separate entities shake it up and see who is in agreement in order to know the correct and needed information. What should be noted is that as a non affiliate publisher, one must also use the MLC for registering their catalogue to cover Mechanical royalties. I am so glad I stumbled onto your videos. To my knowledge HFA did not inform publishers of this change. They also did not inform me in my email correspondence. Your video had the missing link for me. Thank you very much for your video!