We're always interested in hearing about new conferences that take on really important subjects, so we're pleased to announce that we're acting as a media sponsor of the fantastic looking Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference, taking place on October 25th & 26th in San Francisco. It's important that this conference be held for innovators in and around Silicon Valley, given the impact companies and businesses here have around the globe -- both positive and negative.

The speakers list looks fantastic, including (but not limited to) the following:

• Andrew McLaughlin, Former Deputy CTO Whitehouse, ex-Head of Policy, Google, and Founder of Civic Commons
• Alex MacGillivray, General Counsel Twitter
• Craig Newmark, Founder, Craigslist
• Mike Posner, US Assistant Secretary of State
• Jillian York, Director for International Freedom of Expression, EFF
• Rebecca MacKinnon, New America Foundation Bernard L. Schwartz Fellow
• Alex Fowler, Global Privacy & Public Policy Leader, Mozilla
• Bram Cohen, Chief Scientist & Co-founder, BitTorrent
• Ilya Zhitomirskiy, Co-founder, Diaspora
• Mong Palatino, Philippine Parliament Member, and Blogger & Activist
• Sascha Meinrath, Director of the New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative
• Marietje Schaake, European Parliament Member (recently mentioned here for challenging Italy's proposed copyright law)
• ... and many many more

The conference is designed to be interactive, with an open exchange of ideas and best practices, providing an opportunity for industry leaders, startups and concerned citizens from around the world to share and benefit from each other's knowledge and experiences. Discussion topics will include: technology and revolutions, navigating legal jurisdiction in a borderless world, coding for human rights, social media and law enforcement, user privacy and terms of service and lots more.

As a part of this, we're happy to provide Techdirt readers a 20% discount on attending the event. You just have to register with the code "Techdirt20" by September 30th.

The SFMusicTech events have become something of an institution in San Francisco over the past five years or so, bringing together all sorts of people at the intersection of technology and music for a day. I've been to a bunch of them, and have always found them to be interesting and insightful, while also great networking/meeting opportunities. I was interested to find out that Billboard Magazine is apparently putting on something of a copycat conference, a month after the next SFMusicTech, called FutureSound -- also in San Francisco. The events definitely look similar... and perhaps that's because whoever put together the website for the Billboard event seems to have decided to just start with the SFMusicTech text, and then make some slight changes. From the SFMusicTech description of who attends:

The best and brightest developers, entrepreneurs, investors, service providers, journalists, musicians and organizations who work with them at the convergence of culture and commerce.

And, from Billboard's description:

The best and brightest developers, entrepreneurs, investors, music labels, service providers, journalists, artists and organizations who work with them at the convergence of music and commerce.

Kudos to the fine folks at Billboard for finally recognizing that "remixing" is cool. Though, seriously, I do think it's great that there will be more events hitting that intersection between tech and music. But, I do find it amusing when Billboard seems to have this habit of copying others, while attacking me when I suggest copying can be good for you. Apparently, copying is only good when you do it yourself. When others do it, well, that's a different story...

It's been sort of amusing over the past few years to watch the entertainment and media worlds focus increasingly on the idea that they need to "protect" content in some way, as if (a) that's possible or (b) desirable. It is neither. At this point, it should be clear that there is no realistic way to "protect" content. The debunking of DRM has gone on for many years, and I don't think we need to contribute any further to that discussion. But, more importantly, even if it were possible, I would argue that it is not a good idea. The opportunities for smart business models going forward are in enabling people to do more with your content. That is, it's in using the content to create greater and greater value -- and then setting up business models that allow you to capture some of that increased value.

So, I find it rather amusing to see (via Sheri Candler) that there's an entire conference that's been created called The Content Protection Summit. To me, that reads something like the "Rotary Phone Preservation Society" or the "Committee To Restore Butter Churns." It's a historical anachronism that is no longer needed.

Thankfully, the Summit organizers claim that the event will not discuss policy/lobbying efforts, but instead will be a working session to "establish a 'framework'" for the industry. A framework for what? The organizers are vague in a way that suggests even they're not sure. Note the massive overuse of "quotation marks" around everything (the organizers might want to check out the "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks for guidance):

• This is not a "singular event", but rather the establishment of a "framework" through which industry leaders can identify top issues facing the industry, discuss them from all angles and aspects, and work collaboratively on ways to resolve or otherwise reduce/mitigate them through topic-based "working teams".
• Most conferences focus on facilitating two things: "issue awareness" and "social networking". This summit instead focuses specifically on creating the framework to WORK and RESOLVE these issues. As top leaders in the industry with far too much to do, we do not need yet "another conference", but instead need a forum for actually working and resolving the top issues facing us.
• Recognizes the common issues facing the entire "Entertainment Industry (movies + tv + music + games + software + publishing) versus individual industry segments or elements.
• Fills an industry "gap", as there is no continual working forum for these issues. There are individual conferences or parts of events, but nothing that is industry-wide with a singular purpose.

Since they're so big on quotation marks, I'll admit that reading this list makes it sound suspiciously like the event is about "collusion," as each set of quotations marks makes me assume that the word or phrase is a euphemism of sorts, and the only one that seems to fit is collusion. Of course, the industry has tried to work together on DRM in the past and it's failed time and time again, so I'm not sure how getting folks together for another shot at a really bad business model does anything other than get the hopes up for those who haven't realized that they're chasing an obsolete dream, rather than embracing new opportunities.

A recent report by Market Research Media predicts that virtual conferences are poised to take over the conference market, growing to $18.6 billion (from nearly nothing today) in the next five years. Though it's possible that virtual conferences could cannibalize the attendance of the real world conferences, there is more opportunity to increase the size of the market here. After all, attending a virtual version of a conference provides an intermediate tier for those who could not afford the exorbitant time and expense of traveling to a real-world conference. This is similar to what classical orchestras have been doing -- using technology to provide a cheaper alternative to people interested, but unable, to attend their events.

As the wildly popular TED Talks have shown, if done well, it is already possible to share engaging conference talks with a wider audience online. That said, viewing TED videos does not come close to the real-world experience of being at a conference. For most conferences, the presentations are only a small part of the appeal -- networking is a large part of draw. In an attempt to address this, Second Life and ON24 both offer virtual conference programs that are designed to replicate the real-world conference experience online, complete with avatars, virtual meetings and even virtual "goodie bags." Even as someone who spends the bulk of their day online, I am a little skeptical that this will work out well. In order for this to work, the focus has to be on how best to connect people in the virtual world, and less about avatars and goodie bags -- and even then, the additional value of meeting someone through a "virtual conference" seems marginal to the other online social networking options that already exist.

Having attended some great (and admittedly, very fun) conferences this year, I can see why conferences are sometimes considered boondoggles. After all, it is why Vegas has positioned itself as the king of all conference destinations. Though some argue that business relationships initiated in meetings during the day are solidified during the typical sponsored parties thrown at night, in lean times, being a known boondoggle is good a reason to be cut out of the budget. In the virtual world, perhaps Second Life is well positioned for this part of the conference "experience," though maybe it should not have shut down all of its casinos.

Last year, Radiohead garnered incredible attention by offering its album for free and asking fans to pay what they want. Contrary to the guffaws of many, the experiment turned out to be a smart decision which was quickly copied by other musicians. Now, we're starting to see other industries try the "pay what you want" model.

First, Good Magazine began allowing their subscribers to pay any value more than a dollar. Now, the Free Culture 2008 conference, headlined by Stanford's Larry Lessig, John Lilly of Mozilla and Pam Samuelson of Berkeley Law, is using the model. The organizers have implemented a "pay what you want" model for registration and, contrary to the myths of traditional economics, people aren't choosing to pay $0.00. In fact, with more than 200 registered attendees, the average price paid has been more than $20. As more and more examples of this style pop up, it becomes more and more obvious that new, hybrid business models will become widespread and sustainable.