Sunday, October 4th kicks off the first day of the Future of Music Coalition Policy Summit in Washington, DC and WKNC will be there. Mike Perros, better known as Mikey P, and myself, Kelly Reid, known on air as Mz. Kelly, will be attending the Policy Summit, in search of the future.
Pun aside, there is relevance—the music industry has been going through a serious transformation as technology changes the way music is heard, enjoyed, received, bought, and participated in. Right now there is a big gap between the fast paced advancement of technology and the transformation of the laws that direct the way the technology is used with respect to music and its listeners. Technology advances with lightning speed but the law, and how it is interpreted in the courts, moves with a much, much slower pace. There lies the need for The Future of Music Coalition, an organization that participates in the intersection of music and law, serving to inform and through information, provide a bridge to the gap of music and law.
Why does any of this matter? Well because it affects music in so many ways: the way musicians are represented, the way they are payed for their music, the way radio stations like WKNC operate, how music is heard in restaurants or at live shows, it even affects the ability to get a full list of search results when one uses Google.
For ones like Mikey P and myself, deeply in love with music and not quite sure of the future of the music industry, the 2009 Policy Summit is an opportunity to hear many important and experienced individuals give their take on what’s happening now and what the forecast for the future is.
Featured speakers include Democratic Senator of Minnesota, Al Franken, and FCC Chairman, Julius Genachowski. And of course, the Triangle is strongly represented featuring Jed Carlson, COO of ReverbNation, Mac McCaughan, co-founder of Merge Records and musician in Portastatic and Superchunk, as well as Fiona Morgan, journalist for the Independent.
To follow the trek to, through, and back from the Policy Summit you can follow Kellyisthere on Twitter.