Blog
May 16, 2013
Boards
Board of Directors: 2013
Michael Bracy President bio
Brian Zisk Vice-President bio
Farnum Brown Treasurer bio
Bryan Calhoun Secretary bio
Peter DiCola bio
Walter McDonough bio
Erin McKeown bio
Tamara Saviano bio
Kristin Thomson bio
Lissa Rosenthal Ex-Officio bio
Nicole Vandenberg Director Emeritus bio
Advisory Board: 2012
Kevin Arnold Founder/CEO, Independent Online Distribution Alliance
Yochai Benkler Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies, Harvard Law School
Jamie Boyle Professor of Law, Duke University
Whitney Broussard The Law Office of Whitney Broussard
Rick Carnes President, Songwriters Guild of America
Jeff Chang Freelance Writer
Bertis Downs General Counsel and Advisor, R.E.M.; Adjunct Professor, University of Georgia School of Law
Mike Dreese CEO and Co-Founder, Newbury Comics
William Terry Fisher Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Jane Ginsburg Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
Neil Glazer Attorney, Kohn Swift and Graf
Wendy J. Gordon William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor and Professor of Law, Boston University School of Law
Jim Griffin CEO, Onehouse
Kristen Grimm President, Spitfire Strategies
Linda Edell Howard Partner, Adams and Reese LLP
Peter Jenner Manager, Sincere Management; President Emeritus, IMMF
Mark Kates Owner, Fenway Recordings
Rob Kaye Executive Director, Metabrainz Foundation
Larry Lessig Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Jessica Litman Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Terry McBride Co-Founder and CEO, Nettwerk Music Group
Art McGee Communications & Technology Consultant, Online Policy Group
Alexis McGill Executive Director, Americans for American Values
Eben Moglen Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
Sandy Pearlman Producer
Ann Powers Journalist, NPR; Former Senior Curator, Experience Music Project
Tim Pozar COO, United Layer and co-founder, Bay Area Wireless Users Group
Tim Quirk Musician and Online Music Executive
Amy Ray Artist, songwriter, Indigo Girls; Founder, Daemon Records
Ian Rogers CEO, Topspin Media
Leron Rogers Partner, Hewitt & Rogers
Corey Rusk Owner, Touch & Go Records
Hank Shocklee Music Industry Producer, Founder of Public Enemy, President of Shocklee Entertainment
Gigi Sohn President, Public Knowledge
John Strohm Senior Counsel, Loeb & Loeb, LLP
Emy Tseng Communications Policy Analyst, Broadband Technology Opportunities Program
Joe Uehlein Musician and Former Director of Strategic Campaigns, AFL-CIO; Founder, CultureWorks Collective
Siva Vaidhyanathan Associate Professor of Media Studies and Law, University of Virginia
Don Van Cleave Artist Manager, The Artists Organization
Fred von Lohmann Senior Copyright Counsel, Google
Marcy Rauer Wagman Esq. Managing Partner/Attorney Wagman Hurwitz & Dickman, LLC
Nan Warshaw Co-Owner, Bloodshot Records
Josh Wattles Entertainment and Copyright Lawyer
Donald Woodard Partner, Gordon & Rees, LLP
Brian Austin Whitney Founder, Just Plain Folks
Michael Bracy is a partner in the government affairs firm Bracy Tucker Brown & Valanzano. He also co-founded the Future of Music Coalition and currently serves as a board member and Policy Director and co-owns Misra, an independent record label.
Michael is known for his policy work in front of Congress and the FCC, including media consolidation, radio regulation (including Low Power FM), and ensuring public interest principles are at the heart of the legal structures that will help dictate new technological frameworks. Michael is a recognized public advocate both for the music community and for the need for increased citizen participation in the policy process. He has testified before the Congress and the FCC, and speaks often on these issues at conferences and in the media, including CNN, MSNBC, National Public Radio, Washington Post, New York Times, Billboard and elsewhere.
Michael attended Georgetown University, where his courtship with his future wife, Kelly, began in earnest when they co-hosted a radio show on the campus station. After graduation, Kelly and Michael spent seven years in Seattle, where Michael worked in the educational communications field specializing in producing and directing live, interactive educational and government television programming. Kelly and Michael have three children, Eliza, Sophie and Owen, and live in Arlington, VA.
Farnum Brown is Chief Investment Strategist at Trillium Asset Management Corporation. With $900 million assets under management, Trillium is an internationally recognized leader in the field of progressive shareholder activism. The Company pioneered the use of shareholder rights to maximize financial return while improving corporate performance in the areas of environmental, social and media responsibility.
For the past 20 years Farnum has managed investment portfolios for many leading progressives in the music and film industries. He is founding Chair of the Open Media and Information Companies Initiative (Open MIC), a non-profit shareholder advocacy group promoting access and openness in the digital ecosystem. Farnum also serves on the Board of Advisors of Public Radio Capital, a non-profit devoted to expanding non-commercial radio in the US. Farnum holds bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Bryan Calhoun is the VP of New Media and External Affairs at SoundExchange, the non-profit performance rights organization that collects statutory royalties from satellite radio, internet radio, cable TV music channels and similar platforms for streaming sound recordings. Bryan is instrumental in reaching out to artists and rights holders, enhancing and strengthening the role SoundExchange plays in and educating the music business community.
Bryan Calhoun’s holds a B.B.A. in Finance from the University of Georgia (recently the cover story in the university’s alumni magazine, Terry. During an active career, Bryan produced Hip Hop concerts in the early 90s, was a radio and club DJ, worked at record distribution companies and did A&R, marketing and business development for major and indie labels.
In 2003, Mr. Calhoun opened Label Management Systems, LLC, whose clients have included MSN Entertainment, G.O.O.D. Music, Disturbing tha Peace, Monster Cable and others. Additionally, he created business tools for indie labels and artists with the Music Business Toolbox and Label Management Systems Financial Management Software. In recent years he has focused on new media issues consulting the likes of Kanye West, Ludacris and others including working closely with powerhouse management company Hip Hop Since 1978.
Bryan has been influential in advocating for the Performance Rights Act which would entitle artists to be paid when AM and FM broadcasters use their work. He is actively involved in looking at future business models in the music industry and is a frequent speaker and panelist at music industry events.
Peter DiCola is an associate professor of law at Northwestern University. He received his J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in May 2005. After law school, he served as a law clerk to the Honorable Thomas L. Ambro of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He received his Ph.D. in economics, also from the University of Michigan, in 2009. His dissertation concerned regulation of the radio and music industries. While in graduate school, he worked with the Future of Music Coalition as Director of Economic Analysis from 2000–2004 and served as full-time Research Director from 2005–2006. He is the co-author, with Kristin Thomson, of Radio Deregulation: Has It Served Citizens and Musicians? (2002) and the author of False Premises, False Promises: A Quantitative History of Ownership Consolidation in the Radio Industry (2006). More recently, he has co-written a book with Kembrew McLeod of the University of Iowa called Creative License. The book is about the licensing of digital samples in the music industry and was published Duke University Press in March 2011. He is part of the team for the ongoing Artist Revenue Streams project, concentrating on analyzing the data from a nationwide survey about musicians’ revenue. His other current research focuses on copyright policymaking, licensing transactions in the music industry, and the relationship between the two.
Walter McDonough is the General Counsel and one of the founders of the Future of Music Coalition. Mr. McDonough is a former professor of copyright law at Suffolk University Law School. He also serves as a board member on the United States performing rights society SoundExchange and the Alliance of Artist and Recording Companies. Mr. McDonough has traveled throughout North America to speak at the University of Texas Law School and the World Congress of Information Technology, the American Bar Association Annual Intellectual Property Conference, Canadian Music Week, South by Southwest, Association Québécoise de l’industrie du disque, the MUTEK International Music and Technology Conference, the Harvard Law School Berkman Center Signal/Noise 2k5 Conference, the Columbia Journal Of Law And the Arts Symposium, the National Campus and Community Radio Association at the University of Alberta, Music and the Entertainment Industry Educators Association Annual Conference, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Harvard Law School Journal of Law & Technology.
Mr. McDonough is also an attorney who has represented, among others, the Dresden Dolls and Mission of Burma. Mr. McDonough was an associate at Carroll Guido & Groffman in New York City, one of America’s leading music law firms, a former assistant Massachusetts Attorney General and a law clerk for the Honorable Edward F. Harrington of the United States Court for the District of Massachusetts.
Erin McKeown is a multi-instrumentalist, writer, and producer. In addition to her busy touring career, she is a Fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.
Lissa brings more than 15 years of experience in arts leadership, advocacy and nonprofit development to her role as Executive Director. Prior to joining FMC, she served as Programs Director for the American Council for the Arts (presently Americans for the Arts), where she spearheaded national Arts Advocacy Day and the Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy. As Development Director of P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center — an affiliate of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City — Lissa led fundraising and community outreach initiatives for the internationally renowned institution, produced its highly acclaimed Warm Up music series and played a vital role in the historic merger with MoMA.
During her tenure as National Program Director for PAX: Real Solutions to Gun Violence, Lissa directed its highly acclaimed national public health campaigns dedicated to reducing youth gun violence in America, including SPEAK UP — a teen violence prevention initiative in partnership with Teen People Magazine, MTV Networks and Atlantic Records. She has also worked extensively in AIDS fundraising and event production, raising millions of dollars and awareness for AIDS service organizations nationwide.
As a social justice advocate, and prior to relocating to Washington D.C. to join FMC, she led and supported numerous fundraising and awareness-generating campaigns in Pittsburgh, PA. Most recent volunteer activities include work with the national hunger relief agency Share Our Strength and their Taste of the Nation events. This led to her nomination for Share Our Strength’s National Leadership Award, ranking her among their most effective national advocates and volunteers. A promoter of all things green, she has authored several “green” cover features for Pittsburgh Magazine. Her Pittsburgh home is one of the region’s first and largest green renovations.
Lissa is a dedicated champion of the arts, particularly music, and is committed to improving the lives of musicians whose work enriches everyone.
Tamara Saviano is a Grammy and Americana Award winning producer and music business consultant. Saviano owns and operates a consulting, artist management and public relations company serving the Americana and Folk communities. Current clients include Kris Kristofferson, Guy Clark, Radney Foster, Ashley Monroe and John Corbett. As a producer, Saviano’s contributions include Beautiful Dreamer: The Songs of Stephen Foster, honored with a 2004 GRAMMY for Best Traditional Folk Album, The Pilgrim: A Celebration of Kris Kristofferson, Shawn Camp and Billy Burnette’s The Bluegrass Elvises, and the Grammy-nominated This One’s For Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark, which won Album of the Year at the Americana Honors & Awards in 2012. Saviano is a former President and six year board member of the Americana Music Association, member of the board of the Future of Music Coalition and a member of Leadership Music, Class of 2007.
Kristin Thomson is a consultant for the national nonprofit Future of Music Coalition, which advocates for musicians. She has been with FMC since 2001 and has overseen project management, research and event programming, including Future of Music Policy Summits from 2002-2007. She currently co-directs FMC’s Artist Revenue Streams research project, which is examining changes in musicians’ sources of income. She is co-owner of Simple Machines, an independent record label, which released over seventy records and CDs from 1991-1998. She also played guitar in the band Tsunami, which released four albums from 1991-1997 and toured extensively. She currently lives near Philadelphia with her husband Bryan Dilworth, a concert promoter, and their son, where she also plays guitar in the lady-powered band, Ken.
Nicole Vandenberg is an organizer, activist and communications specialist. She is the director of Vandenberg Communications, a Seattle-based public relations firm that specializes in generating awareness, interest and support for artists and entertainers, issues and ideas, campaigns and companies. Among her firm’s past and current clients are: Pearl Jam, Gloria Steinem, Choice USA, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s Groundwork 2001 concert series, People for the American Way, Voters for Choice, and the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young 2000 tour.
Brian Zisk is a parallel technology industry entrepreneur specializing in digital media, web broadcasting and distribution technologies. Brian is Founder and Executive Producer of the SF MusicTech Summit and the Future of Money and Technology Summit. Brian is a Founder and Managing Director of the SF MusicTech Fund, and a Co-Founder of various startups. Additionally, Brian is a Co-Founder and Technologies Director of the Future of Music Coalition and a Board Member and/or Strategic Advisor for a wide variety of tech companies and non-profits. Brian was previously a founder of The Green Witch Internet Radio which was sold to CMGI at the turn of the millennium. He is active in many influential computer-mediated forums, is quoted and published extensively in the media, frequently appears on panels and at industry events, and is an expert at helping founders and musicians, frenzy whipping, brand awareness, and in creating and evaluating new business models.