NASHVILLE — I had the privilege of speaking earlier this morning at the Americana Music Conference, and despite the fact that we were up against another panel featuring one of my favorite artists in this genre, Lyle Lovett, we had a good crowd in the audience (maybe it's because he didn't bring his Large Band). Even better, we had Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) join our panel at the last minute. There is no more dedicated advocate for songwriters in Washington than Marsha Blackburn, and the rest of us spent half our time on the panel letting her know that, and the other half speaking very quickly so we could hear more from her. Her primary message to the audience, which she determined by show of hands came from across the country? Call your congressman and senators and tell them to support creators' rights. Amen!

Blackburn also talked of her involvement and support with the new USTR initiative to partner with friendly trading partners on stronger IP enforcement and cooperation, and I pointed out to her after the panel that we strongly supported that initiative. Before the panel I happened to mention to her that this job was bringing me to Nashville with some frequency, and she said of course it was. She repeated that exchange during the panel to make the point about how creative the Nashville region is. She's right, of course, but any evening stroll past the juke joints of Broadway downtown will reveal that, or a visit to one of the music labels, publishers, or performing rights organizations found just across the highway on Music Row.

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 2nd, 2007 at 1:24 pm by Patrick Ross and is filed under capitol hill, creators, economy, events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.