It’s that time of year again! South By South West 2012 is around the corner and FMC is ready to rock it. If you’re in Austin at SXSW anytime from March 12-18, be sure to track us down!

We’ll be all over the music festival and some of the interactive festival of the Austin, TX event, with public talks, presentations and rock shows galore. The following is a batch of noteworthy SXSW ’12 panels, where FMC staff, boards and buds will cover pretty much every aspect of today’s music biz. 

Here’s a cheat sheet of places you can see and hear FMCers on panels taking place at the Austin Convention Center.

Monday, March 12

SOPA/PIPA/ACTA Meet Up
11:00 a.m. | Big Bend Ballroom (at the Hyatt Regency Austin)

Casey Rae-Hunter, FMC’s Deputy Director, will host this meet up to discuss these controversial pieces of legislation.

Wed, March 14

Getting Your Music/Tech Startup Funded
11:00 a.m. | Room 10C

Lots of music/tech startups venture to SXSW but very few get funded. What can you do to increase your odds, and how can you avoid the pitfalls which might prevent that from happening? Brian Zisk, FMC Co-Founder and Founder/Creator of the SF MusicTech Summit, will be a panelist.

Peter Delevett Venture Capital/Startups Reporter, San Jose Mercury News
Larry Marcus Managing Director, Walden Venture Capital
Hany Nada Partner, GGC Vapital
Patrick Mahoney Managing Director, SF Music Tech Fund
Brian Zisk Founder/Creator, SF MusicTech Summit, Co-Founder, Future of Music Coalition

The New Streaming Music Industry
5:00 p.m. | Room 8BC

Learn how you are earning royalties but not getting them from YouTube, Pandora, Spotify, Rhapsody and more. This panel features Casey Rae-Hunter and SoundExchange’s VP of New Media and External Affairs/FMC Board member Bryan Calhoun.

Jeff Price CEO/Founder, TuneCore
George Howard Advisor/Business Affairs, Wolfgang’s Vault/Daytrotter
Casey Rae-Hunter Deputy Director, Future of Music Coalition
Jon Maples Head of Production, Rhapsody
Bryan Calhoun VP, New Media & External Affairs, SoundExchange

Thurs, March 15

Brass in Pocket: Accessing More Musician Income
1:30 p.m. | Room 17A

At SXSW 2011, the Future of Music Coalition presented its multi-method research project, Artist Revenue Streams. For the past year, the project has collected data from thousands of US-based musicians and composers to better understand what percentage of musicians’ income comes from each revenue source (royalties, gigs, merchandise, or about 40 other possible sources). Learn about the research findings to date, and how working musicians can better access the income streams available to them. Kristin Thomson, FMC Consultant, will moderate this panel, which also features Jean Cook, FMC’s Director of Programs, as well as Ian Rogers, CEO of Topspin and FMC Advisory Board member.

Kristin Thomson Consultant, Future of Music Coalition
Jean Cook Director of Programs, Future of Music Coalition
Ian Rogers CEO, Topspin
Sean Glover Manager Artist Relations, SoundExchange
David Kusek CEO, Berklee College of Music

Another Look at Recovery: Music & Community
4:00 p.m. | Room 17A

Practically every region of the country has been affected by the prolonged economic downturn, and musicians are feeling the pinch. Arts budgets are being slashed. Yet there is also an increased awareness in policy making circles that creative culture can create new opportunities for growth. Some towns and cities have already had some success in allowing music to help energize local economies. What can we learn from those experiments? What can government — federal and otherwise — do to encourage this trend? Government officials, musicians and music entrepreneurs talk about how to make music a force in American recovery. This panel will be moderated by Michael Bracy, FMC Policy Director.

Michael Bracy Policy Director, Future of Music Coalition
Dan Lurie Senior Advisor to the Chairman and Director of Strategic Partnerships, National Endowment for the Arts
Cary Clarke Arts & Culture Policy Director, City of Portland, OR
Dena Morris Legislative Director, Office of US Senator Dick Durbin
Amy Blackman Manager, Cookman

Fri, March 16

Producing Ecstasy
12:30 p.m. | Room 16AB

No matter what happens to, for and against music, it will ‘remain in light’ as the vehicle whereby ecstasy is produced. After all that has happened with music, from analog to digital, from material to immaterial, from MP3 to the miraculous Resurrection of Vinyl itself, music will always cycle back to the production of ecstasy on demand. If human beings have always required ecstasy, do they need it now more than ever? Is the technology getting in the way? This panel will be moderated by FMC’s own Casey Rae-Hunter and features Sandy Pearlman, McGill University Professor and FMC Advisory Board member.

Casey Rae-Hunter Deputy Director, Future of Music Coalition
Sandy Pearlman Professor, McGill University
George Massenburg Professor of Sound Recording, McGill University
Don Mclean University of Toronto