The Future of Music Coalition is a more than decade-old organization that advocates for the interests of musicians and their livelihoods in the contemporary media and networked environment. At its upcoming annual policy summit the FMC will be honoring FCC Commissioner Michael Copps for his work on behalf of the music community. Commissioner Copps and the FMC have been generally united in their opposition to industry consolidation in radio as well as in their advocacy for network neutrality. Copps and the FMC have also been supporters of low-power FM radio.
The FMC Policy Summit runs Oct. 2 – 4 in Washington, D.C. In a stark indication of the times, there are no radio-specific sessions scheduled for the summit. However there are quite a few that take up issues related to online and mobile music services, as well as dealing with royalty collections agencies like SoundExchange and working with blanket licenses.
Note that while broadcast radio stations do not pay royalties to artists, all online and satellite services do, including broadcast stations that also have internet streams. So, it should be obvious why this issue would be of interest to artists hoping to be compensated for their work.
For those who can’t make it to DC for the summit, they have a “premium” live interactive webcast planned. I don’t know if “premium” means that it’s not free, but if you’re interested you can sign up and find out.
