D.C. Policy Day draws standing room only crowd

About 170 people turned out for the "Music, Technology and IP Policy Day" on Wednesday making it a great event in our estimation (if not always the most comfortable -- sorry to the people that had to stand for some of the panels). Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Penn., opened the conference with an unusual shout out for smash up artist Girl Talk. He then proceeded to give a wide ranging speech covering net neutrality, media consolidation. He got a round of applause after making the following comment:

“An LPFM bill hasn’t been introduced yet in this Congress, but I am looking at the issue and wonder why – if a full-power broadcaster can have digital stations that don’t interfere with their main channel, even if the two are right next to each other on the dial – a low-power broadcaster will interfere with a full-power station that’s 3 channels away.”

He also said he wanted to explore a program that would fund pop artists as they pursue their art.

“The NEA has done a great job of promoting classical music and providing much-needed financial support for classical and jazz musicians,” Doyle said. “I think our country ought to look at doing something similar for modern music forms.”

A panel on Internet and satellite that largely focused on the Copyright Royalty Board's new webcasting rates. The afternoon saw some sparks over net neutrality, an informative session on music downloading, and a really interesting speech on copyright law reform (yes, it's possible) by David Carson from the U.S. Copyright Office. After a couple of years of false starts, he expects some progress on reform.

“We are very hopeful this year we can take a major step toward resolving as many Section 115 issues as we can,” Carson said.

There will be much more in the coming days as we post audio and video of the entire conference.