The music industry is trying to survive and possibly reinvent itself. Artists want to get paid. And consumers want music quickly with no strings attached. Are all three goals achievable, and if not, who will lose out? Can unfettered access to the Internet co-exist with artist’s desires to get paid for their music? Can the music industry hack its way through a maze of legal obligations and create a new business model that entices fans before all those fans disappear into the digital underground, where music runs wild and free?

These questions dominated the Future of Music Policy Summit in the nation’s capital, an annual gathering of some of the industry’s leading thinkers and innovators, alongside representatives of the music, technology, business and government communities.