There are over 86,000 registered trade and professional associations – and for a young professional it is important to network and perhaps join, if not follow, the associations that work on your topic of interest. For me, my passion is in licensing and royalties – the backbone of the music publishing industry, and there’s a trade associate for that.
The National Music Publisher’s Association (NMPA) is the leading trade association in the United States for music publishers. According to the association’s mission statement, “the goal of NMPA is to protect its members’ property rights on the legislative, litigation, and regulatory fronts”. The NMPA also owns and controls the Harry Fox Agency, which is the largest mechanical rights collecting society in the United States.
According to the most recent newsletter sent out by NMPA, one of the initiatives that NMPA is working with is that for ‘net neutrality’. Net Neutrality is the principle that all Internet traffic should be treated equally and that all Internet users should be able to use the Internet without any restrictions by the Internet Service Providers (ISP). The NMPA filed reply comments that stressed that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) should make it clear that ISPs can use management practices in order to address abuse that is occurring on their networks. They went on to say that ISPs must have the ability to create a warning system and penalties for those violators in order to prevent unlawful activity. The NMPA also believes that any forthcoming regulations should not prohibit the development of new technologies to fight digital theft. The NMPA signed on to a letter written RIAA on what Net Neutrality as it stands today was doing – “The current legal and regulatory regime is not working for America’s creators. Our businesses are being undermined, as are the dreams and careers of songwriters, artists, musicians, studio technicians, and other professionals. That’s why we look forward to working with you . . . to make the distinction between lawful and unlawful relevant in the marketplace…”.
I think it’s important that NMPA has voiced its concerns on this issue. ISP’s should be able to take measures in order to discourage unlawful activity such as copyright infringement. I think it is important that the NMPA align itself with different initiatives and legal matters that affect music publishers. Copyright infringement not only affects songwriters and musicians, but publishers as well because it dwindles down the royalties that publishers are received as well as the amount of licensing opportunities that present itself.
So where do you stand on net neutrality today? Should there be some amendments to the principle? I think so. And in case you’re wondering what kicked off this whole net neutrality debate – well Comcast was accused of blocking BitTorrent, a site that holds a plethora of pirated content, back in 2007.
