Melanesian Music

The gathering in Brisbane went very well - good turn out from Melanesia and other parts of the Pacific, and a series of interesting overviews, papers, and discussions. A considerable amout of drafting of relevant legislation has been done, and Scott Morris of APRA announced the start of APRA's licensing deal with FM stations in PNG. PNG musicians need to join APRA at the moment to benefit from this, but the ultimate plan is to have a PNG collection agency like APRA or FPRA (http://www.fpra.com.fj/) in Fiji. Once the legislation is complete, it then needs to be passed, and an invitation made by the PNG government for the agency to start. Local musicians and song writers also need to band together to form an association, as this is the basis from which the agency is formed.