Name: Unexcused Absence: Song Registration Agencies Fail to Reach and Teach College Students
Start: 2025-06-06T10:15:00-0500
End: 2025-06-06T10:45:00-0500

Welcome to the APME Memphis 2025 conference. Here, you’ll be able to register for the conference and update your Sched profile. The conference schedule will be available in late spring 2025. At that time, you can view the schedule and select the presentations you’d like to attend. If you have any questions, please visit our conference website or contact us at conference@popularmusiceducation.org We look forward to coming together as a community June 4–7, 2025.

Friday June 6, 2025 10:15am - 10:45am CDT

SPAC - Hodges Choral Room

A survey of 150 music creator college students from across the United States reveals that 93% of respondents had never seen any information, online or otherwise, from The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC), the body currently authorized by the federal government to collect and distribute streaming royalties to songwriters and composers through their music publishers. In addition, only 15% of respondents have received information about The MLC from the American performing rights organizations (PROs), The Recording Academy, the U.S. Copyright Office, the Music Business Association, and the Harry Fox Agency combined. These are some of the most jarring results from the survey designed and administered by MusicAnswers, in coordination with fellow advocates, Artist Rights Alliance. The diverse survey sample included songwriters and composers from Berklee College of Music (Boston), Columbia College (Chicago), New York University (New York), Tiffin University (Ohio), the University of Southern California (Los Angeles), Vanderbilt University (Nashville), Wayne State University (Detroit), and Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo). Of those who had released music, 84% had not registered with The MLC, leaving their streaming mechanical royalties unclaimed in what is commonly known as “the black box.” Industry experts have estimated black box royalties to be somewhere between $400 million and more than $1 billion.

Speakers

Derek Fawcett

Faculty - Songwriting & Voice, Berklee/NYU

Derek Fawcett has shared stages with Peter Frampton, Ben Folds, America, Lifehouse, Pat Benatar, Colin Hay, Gin Blossoms, Blues Traveler, and backed up Chance The Rapper at Lollapalooza. Across five albums with Down The Line, and three as a soloist, he has toured across much of the... Read More →

Friday June 6, 2025 10:15am - 10:45am CDT
SPAC - Hodges Choral Room 3800 Central Ave, Memphis, TN 38117

APME Memphis 2025

Derek Fawcett

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