While she's served as Music Theatre International's top lawyer for a decade, Deborah Hartnett now has a title that more accurately reflects her starring legal role at a theatrical licensing agency that has expanded its presence on the world stage in recent years.

New York-based MTI announced Tuesday that it had promoted Hartnett from director of business and legal affairs to general counsel and senior vice president, effective Jan. 1. The group represents composers, lyricists and authors of hundreds of musicals, from "West Side Story" and "Annie" to "The Producers" and "Les Misérables."

When Hartnett joined MTI in 2010, she focused primarily on handling contracts with authors. But as the agency has grown and opened offices in London and Melbourne, Australia, she has become increasingly involved in a host of other issues, including international privacy laws and copyright enforcement actions in far-flung jurisdictions.

"Things have changed from the beginning because we have these international offices," she said in an interview Tuesday. "There's a lot more that comes along with being an international company. We've always licensed internationally, but because we now have offices in these places more legal work has grown out of that development."

Social media has made it easier than ever to find promotions for unlicensed theater productions anywhere in the world, which has created more work for Hartnett, who has one in-house associate at MTI's small legal department. 

Hartnett said she must "respond quickly to things, like a company in South America is doing a show without a license. But, internationally, sometimes local laws might be trickier when it comes to infringement." 

For instance, a country might allow an unlicensed theater production as long as it's on a small scale or for a school or nonprofit group, according to Hartnett. 

"It's having to know and learn multiple jurisdictions' laws about copyright infringement," she said. "It's one of the more difficult and challenging things we do." 

MTI's licensing department acts as the front line in dealing with suspected infringement and the legal department typically steps in when an infringer refuses to comply with requests to pay licensing fees or stop a show. Hartnett noted that MTI rarely sues, citing the expense of litigation.

"It's a real challenge to handle these efficiently yet come to a satisfactory outcome for our rights holders and ourselves," she said. 

But MTI will litigate if necessary. 

In 2018, the group filed a federal lawsuit in Virginia against Theaterpalooza Community Theater Productions Inc., which Hartnett described as a "serial infringer," and won $450,000 in damages, plus attorneys' fees.