The fourth annual Copyright Alliance EXPOnential on Capitol Hill kicked off this morning with a discussion among artists and policymakers about the importance of intellectual property protection, and the investment by copyright industries in meeting consumer demand for content.

At the “In Syn©: Innovators and Innovation in the Copyright Community” panel, innovators from the software, publishing and filmed entertainment industries talked technology, consumer research, venture capital and the direction consumer needs and wants are headed.

Michael Binko, President and CEO, Kaulkin Information Systems, discussed the challenges and opportunities for both consumers and the “artist engineers” behind cloud computing.

Sarah Hegarty, Director of Product Management, McGraw-Hill, explained the great lengths the publishing house’s education sector takes to understand its core audience of students and teachers. For its CONNECT platform, the company followed students and educators in classrooms, dorm rooms and study groups, tracking every moment of the work and study process.

Students learn in different ways, and teachers are facing larger class sizes and more reporting requirements that drain their time away from regular student evaluation, she explained.

“We saw the market shifting and we wanted to respond. Just translating a textbook into an e-book is not really solving this problem. Everything we put into that platform has to map back to something we learned from our customers,” Hegarty said. “It all has to be based on what our market needs.”

Bob Zitter, Executive Vice President, Technology and Chief Technology Officer for HBO, pointed to similar thinking behind HBOGo and CinemaxGo, services that allow subscribers to stream HBO and Cinemax programming through the internet.

“This is where we see this next generation moving,” Zitter said.  “This service allows subscribers to watch anytime they want, anywhere they want, and on any device they want to watch it on. Our premise is HBO is a service that has been valuable and we need to keep it valuable.”

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, welcomed attendees and stressed the importance of intellectual property.

“I think most senators if they think about it, would know that something very historic and significant and damaging will have occurred if people can’t protect their creative impulses,” Sessions said. “If that can’t be effectively protected then we’ve got a problem.”

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) stopped by and shared how important copyright industries have been in his home state, in particular the film and television industry.

“I don’t know who was more surprised – Clint Eastwood or me – to find him filming in Highland Park, Michigan and that we’d meet there instead of in New York or Hollywood.”

The discussion was the perfect lead-in to the afternoon’s Expo, where a dozen members of the Alliance representing different copyright industries provided educational information about new product development and the economic impact of the creative economy.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010 at 2:28 pm by Gayle Osterberg and is filed under capitol hill, creators, events, In Syn©. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.