Future of Music Coalition

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Future of Music Coalition is a national nonprofit organization that works to ensure a diverse musical culture where artists flourish, are compensated fairly for their work, and where fans can find the music they want. More

FMC on Twitter

What did you score this weekend? Here's some reflections on Record Store Day http://t.co/DOBWrr0ag3

10 min 29 sec ago
Look at this chart and note that @recordstoreday started in 2008. http://t.co/X8ExpaFZjL

1 day 21 hours ago
@RobertBLevine_ Have you read the Wilson book? It's stunningly good.

2 days 16 min ago
RT @sterlewine: Where’s the @FiveThirtyEight analysis on whether patrons of #RSD14 are more or less likely to shop at record stores through…

2 days 49 min ago
@sisario people were reportedly camped out overnight @ Crooked Beat in DC.

2 days 1 hour ago
@henryfarrell @Liz_Hand @JoeBabaian @nxtstop1 @PracticalWisdom @elizscarboro hoping to replicate our survey this summer & see how it worked

2 days 1 hour ago
Happy @recordstoreday! What's on your shopping list today? Here's a few reflections on the event's success. http://t.co/DOBWrr0ag3

2 days 1 hour ago
@shawnyeager http://t.co/VbgweJZs3d also add data point from '13 6.1 million

2 days 14 hours ago
Four lessons from Record Store Day http://t.co/DOBWrr0ag3

2 days 14 hours ago
Vinyl sales are up 600% since 2007. @recordstoreday must be doing something right.

2 days 15 hours ago

FutureBlog

Four Lessons From Record Store Day

When Record Store Day got started in 2008 as a celebration of the culture of independent music retail, it certainly had its fair share of naysayers. “The world has moved on,” they decreed! “Why fetishize the past when you could be embracing the digital future”? At the time, new LP sales in the previous year hovered at a little under a million units. Big box stores and online retail had been causing many beloved local shops to close their doors.

It’s hard to really gauge how much RSD is a direct factor, but by 2013, annual LP sales were up over 600%, topping six million units annually. And that’s a Soundscan figure, so it doesn’t include retailers that don’t report to Soundscan or many DIY mailorder operations. While this certainly hasn’t been enough to offset the decline of CD sales, the repopularization of the vinyl format has been extremely helpful in keeping many indie retailers afloat.

That alone is cause for some serious celebration (and we’ll be in line Saturday morning hoping to score that REM Unplugged 4XLP) but it’s also worth asking what we can learn from this success. Here’s a few ideas:

News broke yesterday that the major labels have filed suit against leading Internet radio service Pandora for playing sound recordings made before February 15, 1972.

This follows a previous suit filed by the recording industry against satellite radio provider Sirius XM, also involving the performances of pre-‘72 recordings.

At FMC we’re all about artists getting paid for the use of their work, particulary when the music is used by large, publicly traded companies. But if the labels are so keen to make sure that performing artists (or their heirs) are being properly compensated, there’s a better way to do it.

Federalize pre-‘72 sound copyrights.

Every rising garage rock band or upstart emcee knows that when you’ve got a bunch of untested new material, one of the smartest things you can do is to load up the van and take your new stuff out on the road to see what the audience thinks.

Well, that’s exactly what the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) are doing. Last year the Internet Task Force at the Dept. of Commerce authored a massive “Green Paper” addressing a wide range of digital copyright issues and asked for public comments. After an initial round of feedback, now they’re taking it on the road, hosting four roundtables around the country for the purpose of soliciting more public feedback to inform the agency’s recommendations. And you’re invited!

Guest post by Owen J. Sloane (@osloane) and Rachel M. Stilwell (@rachelmstilwell)

As nearly two hundred artists, producers, engineers, and music professionals traveled to Washington DC for “GRAMMYs On The Hill” last week, now is a great time to review the status of an important and recurring issue facing recording artists. Artists and record labels, large and small, do not get compensated for the use of their recordings on AM/FM (“terrestrial”) radio. The recording industry would like to see a change in this area, so that working musicians (not just the superstars) can make a fair living making recordings that we as fans want to hear on our local radio stations. It costs money, time, as well as talent, to create great records.

High costs, crappy customer service and speeds well below what’s advertised. How much do you love your Internet Service Provider (ISP)? If you have Comcast or Time Warner Cable, chances are not a lot. These two cable behemoths consistently come in at the top of “worst companies ever” lists, and we’re sure plenty of musicians can count themselves among the frustrated. Now these two companies wanna get married. But will the government allow it?

That’s something that Washington, DC is grappling with as we speak. On one side of the debate you’ve got well-heeled corporate lobbyists working on behalf of ISPs keen to make more money from controlling even more of the broadband marketplace. On the other, you’ve got regular Internet users, consumer groups and creative entrepreneurs who are tired of being promised one thing and paying out the nose for another.

Just today, more than 50 organizations, including Future of Music Coalition, signed on to a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) explaining many of the reasons that this is a bad deal.

Current Features

FMC on Twitter

FutureBlog

Four Lessons From Record Store Day

Major Labels vs. Pandora (Or Why We Can't Have Nice Things)

Internet Task Force Plots Summer Tour Dates

The Quest for Royalties for the Use of Sound Recordings on AM/FM Radio: In Full Swing

Comcast + Time Warner Cable: Out of Rhythm With Musicians

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