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New Music Business Faculty: Professor Sam Howard-Spink

Sam Howard-Spink joins the Music Business faculty this fall as a full-time Clinical Assistant Professor.

Professor Howard-Spink was born in London, and has been a music business journalist in the U.K., Asia, and the U.S. for 13 years.  He has spent much of this time covering the global music business.  He is North American editor of the industry newsletter Music & Copyright.  He has written for Music Week, Music Business International, The Guerrilla Guide to the Music Industry, and many other publications.  He also co-authored an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in a recent case.

Professor Howard-Spink is a Ph.D. candidate in Media Ecology at NYU.  His dissertation is titled, “Mash notes: Hybridization, music, intellectual property and global governance in the 21st Century.”  His research interests include global copyright and intellectual property issues, media activism, and music (sub) cultures, to name a few.

His courses will include “Music in the Media Business,” “The International Music Business Marketplace,” and “Environment of the Music Industry.”

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Music Business Professors Write Editorials for Billboard

Two Music Business professors at NYU, Charles Sanders and Catherine Fitterman, wrote editorials for Billboard during the spring of 2008.

Professor Sanders’ editorial, which was published on January 19, 2008, is titled “Swing Shift: Taking Inspiration From A History-Making Jazz Night” and it reminds Billboard readers of a musical event that led the charge against racism.  In an interview with the late Lionel Hampton, who played in the legendary Carnegie Hall concert in 1938 among both black and white musicians, Sanders encountered a powerful story in which it was the music industry that challenged racial stereotypes long before this became possible in other places, such as baseball and the military.  This, he writes, reminds his students at NYU “of why they should believe in their ability to forge the future into something better than the past or the present.”

In “Underclass Insights: Learning to Listen to Tomorrow’s Music Business Leaders,” published on April 26, 2008, Professor Fitterman celebrates the innovative ideas of five music business majors at NYU about the future of the music industry.  The students came up with everything from improving copyright protection for creators to imbedding chips into our brains.  Not only does Fitterman argue that these students are among those who will “create a vibrant new industry…on their own terms,” but she also issues a warning to the music industry: “You can heed their advice or be crushed underfoot in this revolution.”

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Music Business Professor Participates in Global Forum at 2008 Canadian Music Week

Professor Catherine Moore participated in the 2008 Global Forum at Canadian Music Week this March in Toronto.  The Forum, attended by 120 music industry leaders from around the world, fostered debate about the most pressing issues in the music industry today.  Dr. Moore served as a Table Facilitator for one of the Forum’s roundtable discussions, in which participants shared their opinions about the international music world and posed solutions to its problems.

The Global Forum generated a report, which proposes ways to deal with music piracy through regulation.  According to the report, participants almost unanimously agreed that “rules for commercial relations are necessary in a global economy.”  Furthermore, they suggested that “rules can encourage rather than inhibit innovation in an industry.”  These rules, they argued, would be imperative if new business models are to be successfully developed in the industry.

To read the report, visit the website of the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Music and the Arts at: http://www.caama.org/gf_report.html.  To learn more about Canadian Music Week, visit www.cmw.net.

If you have a story idea about our current Music Business students, faculty members, or alumni, please e-mail it to catherine.moore@nyu.edu.