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Global Forum 2014: Blake Morgan on #IRespectMusic and Online Advocacy

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Last week during Canadian Music Week, artist and entrepreneur Blake Morgan was the keynote speaker of the 2014 Global Forum, where he discussed the I Respect Music campaign and best practices for grassroots advocacy campaigns.Video of his presentation is now available at http://youtu.be/HHt0VTli23A, and is embedded below.

As Blake explained, the I Respect Music campaign was born out backlash against the Internet Radio Fairness Act debacle in the United States, as well as artist backlash against low royalty rates paid by Pandora, but has quickly grown into a movement centered around the idea that music should be respected.
Blake told the audience that the fundamental part of the I Respect Music Campaign was that “artists should be paid for their work – and that’s okay to say!”

At the Global Forum, Morgan told the audience about the early days of the I Respect Music campaign, referencing two articles he wrote, titled Pandora Needs to Do Right By Artists, which gained coverage in TIME, Reuters, and other media outlets, and Art and Music Are Professions Worth Fighting for, which went viral and became Huffington Post’s most-read article of 2013. The article closes with a simple message: “My New Year’s resolution is to stand up more, and speak more. I respect my profession. I respect artists. I respect music.”

Blake then referenced the below tweet from Joana Marie Lor, a young artist from the Philippines, which he calls the “tweet that started it all.”

Blake says Joana’s photo inspired I Respect Music’s ‘selfie’ campaign, in which musicians and music lovers to tweet a photo of themselves with a sign proclaiming #IRespectMusic. The campaign has since received support from high profile artists and fans like Patrick Stewart, David Byrne, Gloria Steinem, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Roseanne Cash, Jane Fonda, and more.

In just the first 30 days of the campaign, the campaign garnered more than 10,000 signatures to a petition urging the US Congress to extend public performance royalties on sound recordings. Blake credits the honesty and authenticity of I Respect Music as key to its success.

 

The video from the Global Forum is now available and embedded below; we encourage all to view it and add their support at http://irespectmusic.org/.

Global Forum attendess added their support for the I Respect Music campaign in a series of photos and tweets:

Post by Music Canada.

 

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