The Technology Policy Institute has confirmed presenters for the 2012 Aspen Forum breakout sessions. The three informal, off-the-record breakout sessions will cover the pertinent topics of copyright and piracy, cybersecurity, and the economics of internet infrastructure, content, and applications. The Aspen Forum is scheduled for August 19 – 21.
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Philip Falcone to Speak at TPI Aspen Forum
Philip Falcone, Chief Executive Officer of Harbinger Capital Partners, will be the featured dinner speaker at the Technology Policy Institute’s 2012 Aspen Forum, scheduled for August 19 – 21. Falcone, is expected to share his perspective on investment and innovation in the communications industry, including his views on spectrum and broadband policy.
Online privacy: Do we need ‘Do-Not-Track’?
Can “self-regulation” adequately protect privacy online? That question was posed during a recent Senate Commerce Committee hearing focused on the current self-regulatory effort to develop a “Do-Not-Track” (DNT) mechanism – and answered in the negative by the committee’s senior Democrats, who believe privacy legislation is long overdue. Commerce Committee Chairman Rockefeller emphasized that he was speaking for consumers. But despite years of such hearings, the benefits to consumers of privacy regulation of any kind – let alone net benefits (i.e., benefits minus costs) – have yet to be demonstrated.
Event – The Effect of File Sharing on Music and Movie Sales: Reviewing the Research
While the majority of research on file-sharing has focused primarily on whether file-sharing has decreased record sales, less attention has been paid to how much of the sales decline can be attributed to file sharing. At the event, “The Effect of File Sharing on Music and Movie Sales: Reviewing the Research,” Stan Liebowitz, Ashbel Smith Professor of Economics at the University of Texas at Dallas, will discuss the findings of his recent paper, “The Metric is the Message: How much of the Decline in Sound Recording Sales is due to File-Sharing?” In the paper, Liebowitz applies a consistent metric to existing research and finds that most estimates indicate that file-sharing is responsible for the entire decline in record sales. Coleman Bazelon from The Brattle Group, Inc., coauthor of “The Impact of Digitization on Business Models in Copyright-Driven Industries,” will discuss the findings of Liebowitz’s paper.