You could call Michael Huppe the Zelig of the music industry. The energetic lawyer shows up at concerts, festivals and panel discussions everywhere. He’s at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, speaking at town hall meetings. He’s at an R&B festival in Philadelphia that’s raising money for struggling musicians. He mingles with celebrities at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles and chats with politicians at a concert on Capitol Hill.
Huppe isn’t a record company executive, though. He’s general counsel for SoundExchange Inc., a nonprofit organization designated by the U.S. Copyright Office to collect and distribute performance royalties when music is broadcast digitally. And he goes to the events with one mission: to tell musicians they might be owed money.
