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Panelist and Speaker Bios

Duncan Black Proprietor , Eschaton blog
Panel: The Net Effect

Duncan Black is a senior fellow with Media Matters for America and the proprietor of the blog Eschaton, which he's been writing under the pseudonym of Atrios since April of 2002. He received his Ph. D in economics from Brown University in 1999, and prior to joining Media Matters held teaching and research positions at the London School of Economics, University of California -- Irvine, and most recently at Bryn Mawr College. His blog gets about 125,000 visits per day, and has been mentioned in numerous publications including Vanity Fair, the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, and the New York Review of Books. He's 35, and lives in Philadelphia with his wife and their two cats.

Michael Bracy Policy Director, Future of Music Coalition
Panel: The Net Effect

Michael Bracy is a partner in the government affairs firm Bracy Tucker Brown & Valanzano. He also co-founded the Future of Music Coalition and currently serves as a board member and Policy Director and co-owns Misra, an independent record label based in Austin, Texas. Michael is known for his policy work in front of Congress and the FCC, including media consolidation, radio regulation (including Low Power FM), and ensuring public interest principles are at the heart of the legal structures that will help dictate new technological frameworks. Michael is a recognized public advocate both for the music community and for the need for increased citizen participation in the policy process. He has testified before the Congress and the FCC, and speaks often on these issues at conferences and in the media, including CNN, MSNBC, National Public Radio, Washington Post, New York Times, Billboard and elsewhere. Michael attended Georgetown University, where his courtship with his future wife, Kelly, began in earnest when they co-hosted a radio show on the campus station. After graduation, Kelly and Michael spent seven years in Seattle, where Michael worked in the educational communications field specializing in producing and directing live, interactive educational and government television programming. Kelly and Michael have three children, Eliza, Sophie and Owen, and live in Arlington, VA.

Fred Cannon Senior Vice President, Government Relations, BMI
Panel: Stocking the Celestial Jukebox

David Carson Associate Register for Policy & International Affairs, U.S. Copyright Office
Panel: Afternoon Keynote by David Carson

DAVID O. CARSON David O. Carson is Associate Register for Policy and International Affairs at the U.S. Copyright Office. The Copyright Office, part of the Library of Congress, administers the U.S. copyright law. As Associate Register, he is the head of the Office of Policy and International Affairs, which assists the Register of Copyrights in advising Congress and executive branch agencies on domestic and international copyright policy matters. He represents the Copyright Office in U.S. government delegations to meetings at the World Intellectual Property Organization, including its Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights. From 1997 through the end of 2006, he was the Copyright Office General Counsel, where he had responsibility for the Offices regulatory activities (including administration of the copyright statutory licenses), litigation, and providing liaison on legal and policy matters between the Office and Congress, the Department of Justice and other agencies of Government, the courts, the legal community, and other interests affected by the copyright law. Prior to joining the Copyright Office in 1997, he was in private practice, representing publishers, authors, motion picture and television production companies, recording artists, composers, record companies, computer software publishers and others in areas including copyrights, trademarks, defamation, rights of privacy and publicity, and publishing and entertainment contracts. He has written articles and lectured on issues in these fields of law. He is a former trustee of the Copyright Society of the USA, a former director of the American Intellectual Property Law Association and former chair of its Committee on Copyright Law. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School and received bachelor of arts and master of arts degrees in history at Stanford University.

Scott Cleland Founder & President, Precursor, Chairman, NetCompetition.org
Panel: The Net Effect

Julie E. Cohen Professor of Law, Georgetown University
Panel: Stocking the Celestial Jukebox

Parul Desai Assistant Director, Media Access Project
Panel: The Net Effect

Parul Desai joined Media Access Project as Assistant Director in October 2005. Prior to joining MAP, Parul served as in-house counsel to Microstrategy, Inc., McLean, VA. From 2001-2004, she was as associate in the Telecommunication, Media, and Technology and Litigation Groups of the law firm Crowell & Moring LLP. Parul is a magna cum laude graduate of New York Law School and her undergraduate degree is from Rutgers University. Parul is one of the founders and owners of an independent record label and production company, Propa Gandaz Music Group, LLC.

Bertis Downs Advisor R.E.M, Athens LLC
Panel: The Net Effect

Since graduating from Davidson College in 1978, Bertis Downs has lived in Athens, Georgia where he received his law degree in 1981 from the University of Georgia's School of Law. He has taught there as an adjunct ever since. His specialty is entertainment law, and he has represented R.E.M. throughout their career. Downs has maintained his interest in teaching, both through the entertainment law course at the University of Georgia and speaking at various national continuing legal education groups such as the Practicing Law Institute and the American Bar Association Forum Committee on the Entertainment and Sports Industries. He has lectured widely at law schools including William and Mary, Chicago, Harvard, Duke, Emory and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Downs has been married to Katherine since 1986 and they have two daughters, Adelaide and Eliza. His civic and sociopolitical interests include historic preservation, human rights, the death penalty and the changing legal and business landscape relating to the digital age.

Congressman Mike Doyle ., .
Panel: Keynote Speaker

Elizabeth Elmore Esq., Grippo & Elden
Panel: I don't know

Elizabeth Elmore is an attorney with Grippo & Elden in Chicago, IL. Her practice encompasses a wide variety of complex commercial litigation matters. Before joining the firm, Elizabeth spent much of the last ten years as a full-time musician touring in indie and punk bands. After graduating from Northwestern University School of Law in 2004, Elizabeth developed a solo entertainment law practice representing independent bands and labels in contract negotiations and copyright and trademark registrations. She was perpetually offended by the atrocities found in modern indie contracts and was more than content to leave that arena. While at Northwestern, Elizabeth wrote two academic papers advocating a Lockean "natural rights" justification for intellectual property, rather than the instrumentalist economic-incentive justification adopted in the Constitution. She just recently successfully downloaded her first mp3.

Mike Holden Musician, www.mikeholdenmusic.com
Panel: Radio Waves

Recently described by The Washington Post as "one of the biggest champions of the local music scene and an accomplished roots rock singer-songwriter in his own right," Mike Holden is a Washington, D.C. based musician who has used technologies such as podcasting, internet radio, and Pandora to reach new audiences with his music. Outside of his own music, Holden created MetroMusicScene.com, which includes a Yahoo Group of over 1,300 members, and founded the D.C. area's annual Six Points Music Festival. He also worked as Music Editor for On Tap magazine and serves on the Board of Directors for the Washington Area Music Association (WAMA). As part of his previous job as Media Relations Manager for Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts, Holden helped launch an internet radio station, podcasts, and a staff-authored blog to promote performances and other Foundation initiatives, while working to increase exposure for Wolf Trap through the mainstream media and various other forms of new media. Holden now works for Thompson Hospitality as Director of Marketing for Austin Grill. The six-store DC area restaurant group has live music at many of their locations and sponsors the MHz Spotlight television program which highlights up-and-coming DC area artists.

Dick Huey CEO, Toolshed Inc
Panel: Radio Waves

Congressman Jay Inslee ., .
Panel: Keynote Speaker

Joe Kennedy CEO and President, Pandora
Panel: Radio Waves

Joe Kennedy joined Pandora in 2004 following a five-year stint at E-LOAN, where he was President and Chief Operating Officer. From 1995 to 1999, he was the Vice President of Sales, Service and Marketing for Saturn Corporation, which he grew to over $4 billion in revenue and established as the top brand for customer satisfaction in the auto industry. Joe joined the initial start-up team at Saturn, four months after its founding, as a marketing manager and held positions of increasing marketing responsibility over the course of his 11-year tenure there. Joe holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Princeton University, where he dabbled in music theory and learned to compose his own Gregorian chants. He is Pandora's resident pop music junkie. Current favorites include Counting Crows, G.B. Leighton, Sarah McLachlan, Juanes and Kelly Clarkson. Joe has also been playing the piano for more than 30 years, most of which has been spent attempting to master Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue."

Eric Logan Executive Vice President, Programming, XM Satellite Radio
Panel: Radio Waves

Eric Logan has served as Executive Vice President of Programming for XM Satellite Radio since August 2004. Mr. Logan oversees all music, sports, talk, comedy, childrens and entertainment programming for XM Satellite Radios 170 channels. During his tenure, XM has further expanded its programming offerings, including the addition of: Oprah & Friends, a 24-hour channel featuring original shows hosted Oprah Winfrey and popular Oprah Winfrey Show personalities; a 24-hour Spanish language sports talk channel; Major League Baseball (MLB), National Hockey League (NHL) and FIFA World Cup Soccer, as well as programs from top musical artists, including Bob Dylan, Snoop Dogg, Tom Petty, and Ludacris. Additionally, under Mr. Logan XM has secured exclusive programming partnerships with The GRAMMYs®, FOX News, and ABC News Good Morning America, among others. Prior to joining XM, Mr. Logan served as President of Programming for Citadel Broadcasting. Logan, a radio industry veteran with more than 20 years of experience, has received numerous programming awards over his career in radio. Prior to his position at Citadel, he was Vice President of Programming at Infinity, and he served as Vice President, Operations at award- winning country radio station WUSN-FM in Chicago.

Steve Marks Vice President and General Counsel, RIAA
Panel: Stocking the Celestial Jukebox

Walter McDonough General Counsel, Future of Music Coalition
Panel: Stocking the Celestial Jukebox

Walter McDonough is the General Counsel and one of the founders of the Future of Music Coalition. Mr. McDonough is a professor of copyright law at Suffolk University Law School. He also serves as a board member on the United States performing rights society SoundExchange and the Alliance of Artist and Recording Companies. Mr. McDonough has traveled throughout North America to speak at the University of Texas Law School and the World Congress of Information Technology, the American Bar Association Annual Intellectual Property Conference, Canadian Music Week, South by Southwest, the MUTEK International Music and Technology Conference, the Harvard Law School Berkman Center Signal/Noise 2k5 Conference, the Columbia Journal Of Law And the Arts Symposium, the University of Alberta, Music and the Entertainment Industry Educators Association Annual Conference, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Harvard Law School Journal of Law & Technology. Mr. McDonough is also an attorney who represents, among others, the Dresden Dolls and Mission of Burma. Mr. McDonough was an associate at Carroll Guido & Groffman in New York City, one of America's leading music law firms, a former assistant Massachusetts Attorney General and a law clerk for the Honorable Edward F. Harrington of the United States Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Michael Petricone Senior Vice President, Government Affairs, Consumer Electronics Association
Panel: Stocking the Celestial Jukebox

Victoria Phillips Asst. Director, Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Clinic, Washington College of Law, American University
Panel: The Net Effect

Victoria F. Phillips  Ms. Phillips is on the faculty of the American University Washington College of Law. She teaches communications and intellectual property law and serves as the Assistant Director of the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic. She also helped found the law schools Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property to promote the public interest in copyright, patent, trademark communications, technology and related fields. Before joining the WCL faculty to help launch these programs in 2001, she was Chief of the Legal Branch of the Mass Media Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission and counsel in the Office of General Counsel. While at the FCC she worked on a wide range of mass media policy proceedings including those related to broadcast ownership, broadcast public interest obligations, digital television conversion, childrens television, public television and political programming. Before joining the FCC she served as the Assistant General Counsel of the National Endowment for the Humanities and practiced communications and intellectual property law at Wiley, Rein and Fielding in Washington D.C. and clerked for Edward S. Northrop, U.S. District Judge in Baltimore, Maryland. Her articles include Commodification, Intellectual Property and the Women of Gees Bend, 15 AM. U. J. GENDER SOC. POLICY & L. 359 (2007) and On Media Consolidation, the Public Interest and Angels Earning Wings, 55 AM. U. L. REV. 613 (2004).

Patricia Polach Associate General Counsel, AFM, Bredhoff & Kaiser, PLLC
Panel: Radio Waves

Patricia Polach is the Associate General Counsel of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) and of counsel to the law firm of Bredhoff & Kaiser, PLLC, in Washington, D.C. She represented the AFM in the legislative campaign to enact the Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995 (and, in particular, in the AFMs and AFTRAs successful efforts to ensure that the Act would require the new income streams created to be shared with featured and non-featured performers), as well as in the initial rate-setting proceedings under the Act and in the negotiations that led to the spin-off of SoundExchange into an independent corporation managed by a board composed equally of copyright owner and performer representatives. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of SoundExchange. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School and Michigan State University.

Gary Shapiro President and CEO, Consumer Electronics Association
Panel: Lunch

Jule Sigall Senior Attorney, Microsoft Corp.
Panel: Stocking the Celestial Jukebox

Jule L. Sigall is a Senior Attorney in Microsoft's Legal & Corporate Affairs department, focusing on global copyright policy. Before joining Microsoft, Jule served as Associate Register for Policy & International Affairs at the U.S. Copyright Office, where he lead the division responsible for providing domestic and international copyright policy advice to both the Legislative and Executive Branches. Most recently he was in charge of the Office's Report on Orphan Works, published in 2006, and testified on the Report before Subcommittees of the Senate and House of Representatives. On the international side, he headed the U.S. delegation to sessions of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright & Related Rights, which is considering a new treaty for the protection of broadcasting organizations. He is also an adjunct professor at George Washington University Law School, where he teaches copyright law, and is a frequent speaker on copyright in both domestic and international conferences. Prior to his government service, Jule practiced in the Intellectual Property & Technology Group of Arnold & Porter in Washington, DC, where he was involved in some of the leading cases involving copyright and new technology, such as Universal Music Group v. mp3.com, Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corp., and RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia. He also successfully argued before the Ninth Circuit for reversal in the photography copyright case of Ets-Hokin v. Skyy Spirits, and authored several amicus briefs in copyright cases. In both his private and public sector positions he has worked on almost every major piece of copyright legislation considered in the United States in the past decade. He is a summa cum laude graduate of Catholic University's Columbus School of Law, where he served as Note and Comment Editor on The Catholic University Law Review. He received his A.B. in Philosophy from Duke University.

John Simson Executive Director, SoundExchange
Panel: Radio Waves

Gigi Sohn President, Public Knowledge
Panel: The Net Effect

Brian Zisk Cofounder and Technologies Director, Future of Music Coalition
Panel: Radio Waves

Brian Zisk is a Founder and the Technologies Director of The Future of Music Coalition, and an expert in new business models and building buzz. Brian is also a partner in Kiddie Village, an award winning children's Educational Video Company. Previously, Brian founded The Green Witch Internet Radio, an Open Source audio pioneer which was purchased by CMGI, Inc. Brian is on the Board of Directors of the MetaBrainz Foundation, operator of the MusicBrainz project, and on the Board of Advisors for numerous companies and projects, including leading Video on Demand company Gotuit Media and the non-profit Xiph Organization, creators of Vorbis, FLAC, and Icecast among many Open Source projects.