NMC/MPA Announce 2016 Student Video Scholarship Winners

The NMC and Music Publishers Association are pleased to announce the winners of our 2016 Copyright Awareness Scholarship!

First prize went to Tara Troiano for her simple and heartfelt message about the difficulty of building a future as a musician when people are illegally downloading content online. Tara is a sophomore at Frisco High School in Frisco, Texas, and hopes to attend college to study film, music, and business.

Second prize went to Kathryn Keller for her concise video comparing online theft to stealing money directly from a busker. Kathryn is a student at Columbia College Chicago where she studies television writing and producing.

Third prize went to Lexus Jackson for her submission Working for Free which poses the question to the viewer: if you wouldn’t work for free, why would you expect the same from artists and musicians? Lexus is a graduate student at Eastern Michigan University in Lansing studying business and entrepreneurship.

With so many exceptional submissions this year it was hard to select just three winners. The National Music Council and the Music Publishers Association would like to extend an honorable mention to finalists Jules Iradukunda and Blake Derksen.

We are certain that each and every one of these students have a bright future in whatever field they chose.

And to all of the students who took the time to tell us why copyright and intellectual property are important, we commend them! We know how much work goes into these projects and look forward to viewing the creative and fantastic things that come from the minds of our applicants. Our goal in having this scholarship opportunity available is not only to provide a few students with a little assistance for their studies, but also to educate students of all ages about the importance of protecting intellectual property and the myriad of diverse industries that are affected when copyright laws aren’t respected.

The Copyright Awareness Scholarship was created in 2010 by the Music Publishers Association to help students learn more about intellectual property and copyright. The MPA has since joined with the National Music Council to help cast a wider net and reach a larger audience of students.

For more information please contact scholarship@mpa.org.

In addition to the Copyright Awareness Scholarship, the NMC & MPA offer award winning curriculum ideas for the classroom to help students understand copyright and intellectual property and how imperative it is to support the creation of new work. For more information on that, including educational resources, please visit www.iMadeIt.org.

Please contact David Sanders at NMC for graphics to post on your organization website: sandersd@montclair.edu