What do Radiohead, Iron Maiden and David Gilmour have in common? All are founding members of the "Featured Artists Coalition," an organization launched this past weekend for the purpose of protecting the rights of recording artists.
As reported by the London-based newspaper The Guardian, the coalition is designed to "speak with one voice to help artists strike a new bargain with record companies, digital distributors and others ... by engaging with government, music and technology companies, and collection societies, arguing for fair play and, where necessary, exposing unfair practices."
Citing the impact of the digital revolution, the organization will campaign for artist-friendly copyright deals, with an emphasis on providing young bands with a governing voice that will support them and help protect their work.
"For us, this is a no-brainer, and we believe all artists and musicians should be signing up," Radiohead guitarist Ed O'Brien told The Guardian, pointing out that copyright issues figured prominently in the band's decision to release last year's In Rainbows as a "pay what you can" download.
Central to the organization's manifesto is the issue of fair compensation to the artist when transactions occur between record companies and technology companies. Allegedly, streaming arrangements and downloading arrangements such as MySpace Music and Nokia's "Comes With Music" have resulted in profits for record labels, but have ignored the rights of artists.
"Every meeting I go to, I look around the table and there are 20 or 30 people, but no one representing the artist," Jazz Summers, manager of The Verve, told The Guardian. "This is not about bashing record labels. But it is about recognizing that the interests of the record label and the artist are not always aligned." —Russell Hall