Harry David Kerr (8 October 1880 Santa Rosa, California – 21 May 1957 Los Angeles)[1] was an American songwriter, lyricist, author, and lawyer.
In 1922, while living in New York City, Kerr prepared the incorporation documents for the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), of which he had become one of 90 charter members at its founding in 1914.
[8] Beginning in 1907 as a young lawyer, Kerr worked for about 18 months with a coalition in Washington, D.C., for the passage of the Copyright Act of 1909, which secured the rights of composers to charge royalties on the sales of sound recordings.
[9][10] The U.S. Congregational Committee on Copyrights began hearings Mary 26–28, 1908, at the Library of Congress, to vet the concerns and proposals of authors and managers.
In June 1901, Kerr moved from Watertown, New York, to Denver to accept an executive and governance position — corporate secretary and director — with The New York Mining and Development Company, of which Ezekiel Hanson Cook, PhD (1845–1907), who from 1994 to 1889 had been the president of Potsdam Normal College, was president.