Now that Jim has turned off his brain and handed over IPcentral's keys, I feel an obligation to jump in with a post. I'll do that by following on Jim's Aspen blogs.

First, if you'd like to read more about the Summit, on the PFF site you'll see several press releases and newsletters Amy Smorodin and I put out from Aspen. You can also see every session and speech streamed here. As for my thoughts, click on the link just below this text.

Okay, still with me? Good.

This was my third Aspen Summit. I missed opportunities in 2000 and 2001, went in 2002, stepped aside for a colleague in 2003 and reclaimed it in 2004. Those other times I covered it as a reporter, this time I was there as one of the organizers. It's much easier as a reporter, I've decided.

Impressions:

* Edgar Bronfman, Jr., gets it. He's refreshingly honest (I think too much so for his PR staff) and he just wants his company to make money and help artists. I love his e-label concept, particularly the fact that the artists would own the masters and copyrights to their songs. He came in without the baggage many in the recording industry have stemming from the long struggle over piracy. Now that there seems to be a lasting detente, I think Bronfman and WMG can really lead his industry into new and innovative business models that will benefit both artists and consumers.

* I can't say for sure if Jonathan Schwartz gets it, but if he doesn't it isn't due to lack of intelligence. His Sunday night speech was quite compelling. That said, his long narrative left out some key details and inflated others. (One example -- in talking about how regular citizens are increasingly the producers and owners of the most valuable content, he could cite only cameraphone shots of the London tube bombings and amateur video of the Asian tsunami. Somehow I doubt that footage, which had a commercial value approaching zero mere days after those events, compares to the commercial value of one music label's new releases on any given Tuesday.) His DReaM project, if successful, will put out of business anyone who had hoped to make money off of DRM. Is that bad or good? I don't attach moral values to industries, if the market says there won't be a DRM market then there won't be one. But I suspect there will be one, because in a digital society there's an infinite number of DRM possibilities, and I don't think DReaM could meet all of those possibilities. Also, nothing against pony tails (PFF's co-founder famously sports one) but in a hair-off, I thought Bronfman beats Schwartz by a hair.

* The patent panel and the patent working dinner (the latter was off the record and so I won't provide details) were fascinating to me, because as loyal readers know I'm trying to learn all I can about patents. Jim and Solveig are way ahead of me there, even if they keep saying how little they know on the subject (believe me, they know a lot more than they let on). Nathan Myhrvold had a lot of interesting charts that painted the picture he wanted to paint, namely that the patent problem is overstated and we may not even need any reform right now. A most compelling graph showed that when you look at law suits filed each year per patent issued that year, for the last several years there has been a decline in relative litigation. That's fascinating. I left Aspen having no idea whether we need fundamental patent reform, or if we do what shape it should be in. The only thing I do know is what I've known for several years, that PTO shouldn't have its fees diverted, making it difficult to have a steady budget for examiner recruitment, training and retention. I invite people who understand this subject to e-mail me with their thoughts on what we should do with patents.

* My final Aspen reflection is a positive one. The Summit in its early years was telecom-heavy, but content and tech representatives are now significantly represented in the mix of both speakers and attendees. I witnessed and participated in numerous discussions with this assortment, and noted that even when people had firm disagreements, either ideological or business-related, there was respect and consideration present everywhere I went. In other words, it was pretty much the opposite of what you find in the blogosphere.