“Advancing the Creative Economy” was the theme of the Copyright Clearance Center’s OnCopyright 2012 conference on March 30, and an important first order of business seemed to be defining what, exactly, a creative economy is. For many, it became a matter of semantics: “piracy” and “stealing” vs. “infringement,” “individual” vs. “commercial,” “intellectual property” vs. “creative greater good,” and “copyright” vs. “licensing.” The philosophical implications of these words clearly depended on what roles panelists played in the creative economy, as did the preference as to whether copyright ambiguities be better defined, or remain vague and fungible…

…For Robert Levine and singer-songwriter Erin McKeown, the idea of infringement isn’t necessarily a worry. Through a study by The Future of Music Coalition, McKeown discovered that only 20% of her income comes from copyright and that even that is a high because she owns all her masters and her music. Levine admitted that “[he doesn’t] need copyright for 70 years after [his] death. But [he] would like a couple months where [his book is] not pirated”…