Shaping the Future of Music Recording: A Recording Academy membership division, the P&E Wing is a 6,500 member nationwide network that advises The Academy on technical matters related to recording, while addressing areas of concern to producers, engineers, remixers, manufacturers, technologists and other related professionals. Concerns addressed by the Wing include sound quality, development of new technologies, technical best practices, education in the recording arts and advocacy for the rights of music creators. Each of The Academy’s 12 Chapters has a P&E committee; there’s also an advisory council of professionals from different genres and disciplines and a steering committee that, Managing Director Maureen Droney says, “provides direction to help us decide where to put our resources.” Droney describes her role as “an advocate for those who work behind the scenes, dedicated to ensuring they get the recognition and compensation they deserve.”
Credits and Recording Metadata: The Recording Academy and its P&E Wing are working to address the current lack of visible recording credits for creative contributors to the recording process. Challenges in the digital environment include how to collect and distribute this information in an accurate and standardized manner, and how and where to store and display it.
Until widespread solutions are adopted, the recording community itself must take responsibility to collect and save the information required for creative contributors to be recognized and documented. A recommended list of the most important credits and other data to be documented can be found here: bit.ly/1GxRk6L.
Fair Play, Fair Pay: Earlier this year, The Recording Academy helped introduce to Congress the bipartisan “Fair Play, Fair Pay Act of 2015,” which, if passed, would modernize outdated rules that currently govern music licensing for digital and terrestrial radio broadcasts. It would require terrestrial stations to join satellite and internet radio in making payments to performers for their broadcast on radio. It would also require all forms of radio to pay recording royal- ties on music made prior to 1972 and streamline payment of royalties to producers.
For more information, visit grammy.org/recording-academy/producers-and-engineers.
By Jonathan Widran
