Jenny Toomey
Jenny Toomey returned from Tucson and has spent the past few weeks
writing comments for the Judiciary Committee and the Copyright Office.
Previous to that she spoke on two panels at the South By Southwest
Festival in Austin, TX; one slightly dull panel focused on the digital
future of music and technology and one very spirited panel focused
on musicians and health care. She also performed twice at SXSW with
Franklin Bruno, Jean Cook and Lester Chambers, and sat in with the
Pine Valley Cosmonauts to sing the Cole Porter cover she did for their
recently released anti-death penalty record "The Executioner’s
Last Songs."
Upon returning from Texas she has been working with Kristin to publicize
the FMC health insurance survey within the musician community. She
has also been submitting foundation grants in order to obtain the
funding necessary to take the FMC health initiative to the next phase.
Last week she took time out of her writing schedule to perform in
Philly at the Balcony with Kristin’s band Ken and to take the FMC
speaking tour to Wayne State Law School at the request of Jessica Litman.
Michael Bracy
There’s no rest for the wicked in DC, as Michael had to put his "ban
the RPI" crusade on hold despite the shocking refusal of the
NCAA tournament selection committee to tender an invitation to his
beloved Georgetown Hoyas. Instead, March saw Michael enjoying a spectacular
week in Austin at the South by Southwest conference. Back in DC, Michael
worked on comments that were submitted to the Copyright Office regarding webcasting issues
and a letter to leaders of the House Judiciary Committee that outlines
FMC’s legislative priorities for 2002. Michael is also working hard
on the issue of non-commercial webcasting and moving forward on a
public awareness campaign focused on new Low Power Radio stations.
Walter McDonough
Walter McDonough is continuing to fight for performance royalties
for American songwriters and recording artists. The FMC recently filed
comments with the United States House of Representatives requesting
that our country follow the policy in place in the rest of the world,
namely, that recording artists should receive compensation for the
use of their recordings on broadcast radio. On other fronts, the FMC is also requesting that
the Congress pass, and the President sign, a bill that will give recording
artists a compulsory license for their unreleased recordings. Hopefully,
when this legislation is enacted, the thousands of recordings that
have either been unreleased by record labels or have been taken out or
print will be released to the public thereby increasing the nation’s
music legacy. Walter was also recently quoted in a front-page Billboard
article, "Victory Eludes Legal Fight Over File Swapping".
Kristin Thomson
Kristin has been juggling many balls at once, including managing the
health insurance survey, forging ahead on the radio consolidation
study, working on the filings with the US Copyright Office and the
letter to the House Judiciary Committee, and keeping the website moderately
current. When she’s not pushing her Titanium Powerbook to extreme
limits, she’s been serving on the band and fundraising committees
for Ladyfest Philadelphia, which is slated for March 2003 in the city
of "brotherly love", and getting ready for a few more shows
with her band Ken before heading into the recording studio in July.
Peter DiCola
Peter DiCola is getting ready for a month of finals exams in law and
economics and frankly, we don’t hear too much from him. He’s looking
forward to working on the FMC’s study of radio consolidation once
the summer begins.
Brian Zisk
Brian married Shoshana Samole, who’s running Business Affairs for
funk superstar George Clinton! He’s actively working with webcasters
and the press to clarify how the proposed reporting requirements will
affect the future of this new media. In addition to writing 10 pages
of comments to submit to the Copyright Office (which unfortunately
were never submitted due to political considerations), Brian’s been talking with the RIAA (both
in public, and private) in an attempt to clarify whether they are
actually attempting to put all webcasters whom they don’t approve
of out of business, or if they just don’t comprehend what they are
pushing the Copyright Office to adopt. Brian is currently writing
up his views on some of the more onerous proposed reporting requirements,
which include the tracking of the listening habits of unique listeners,
the ephemeral copy reporting requirements, and the necessity for all
webcasters to each enter the same redundant public information which
the RIAA already has, but which it insists is proprietary. It is believed
that this will be published in a well-known news outlet shortly.