What We’ll Be Liveblogging at SF MusicTech Summit 2014

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The hardest part of going to a large-scale, long-running conference is deciding which panels and presentations to attend.

At this year’s SF MusicTech, there will sometimes be as many as four sessions running simultaneously. Sadly, we only have one-person coverage. Happily, we’ll be liveblogging throughout the whole May 20 event, so mark your calendar and tune in from 9-5 Pacific time.

Here are the panels we will be liveblogging from:

9:20

Getting to 10 Million Views: Presentation and Conversations

There are some amazing sessions kicking this off, and the one on Net Neutrality is sure to be hoppin’ now that the FCC is threatening to destroy the most important technology since the printing press.

We here at Songhack been calling our congresscritters every few days to remind them that the citizenry demands an Internet regulated like a public utility. We feel like hanging out here is only going to bum us out, so we’re going to a session geared more toward musicians.

Jack Conte is known to many for his band Pomplamoose. Around these parts, we laud his company Patreon, which is truly paving the way for the next big wave of direct fan patronage.

We showed you Andrew Furmancyk in our hack on learning music theory through free online videos. He’s one of those “YouTube famous” folks, and it pays to be YouTube famous, so we’ll be paying attention.

Eyegroove is a really cool app that is sort of an “Instagram for short music videos”. Curious to see what CEO Scott Snibbe has to say about his experience.

10:40

Cause Celebre’

There’s not a whole lot of info on this panel, but judging from the participants, it’s going to be focused on building large communities around causes and fandom. It’s moderated by Jan D’Alessandro of Backplane, which is famous for being the platform running Lady Gaga’s one-million-strong Little Monsters fan club.

1:00

Hot Topics in Music Licensing

Licensing is a very hot topic in the music businesses. There are more licensing opportunities than ever before, but also more challenges to the established business model based on royalty entitlements. We’re looking forward to Pandora, Google and SoundExchange representatives having an hour to opine on their vision for the future of music.

There might be some pretty cool product launches and announcements going on at this time — we will update you on those as soon as they break.

2:00

A Conversation on Copyright

We are going to hit up the first half of the copyright seminar with Professor David Nimmer, who is widely regarded as the foremost scholar in U.S. copyright law.

2:30

The Piracy Crusade

Then we’ll head off to author and educator Aran Sinnreich’s talk on The Piracy Crusade, the topic and title of a book he recently wrote. We’re impressed with the book and its lucid take on just how much is at stake in the copyright wars between corporations and our culture.

3:30

Building a Community for Musicians

A diverse group appears on this panel, including Philip Kaplan, founder of DistroKid, one of Songhack’s favorite new services for musicians. We’re sure to get several diverse viewpoints on fan base best practices.

4:30

Music & the Mind: How Music Evokes Emotion in the Brain

We are fascinated with the origins of music, and all of the interdisciplinary research over the last 20 years to try and understand the brain’s most engaging activity. Dr. AK Pradeep of MoodCast will present his findings.

5:00

The Price of Music: What Should it Be?

Our final liveblogged panel might be the one we’re looking forward to the most.

We’re big fans of Ari Herstand and his site Ari’s Take, which gives musicians vital coaching and advice for free.

It will also be interesting to see the welcome that Dave Allen, “Artist Advocate” for Beats, will get after the multi-billion-dollar Apple acquisition details leaked.

That will be nearly 8 hours of non-stop live blogging. To follow our coverage, just follow the link on the front page on Tuesday, May 20th, when we go live at 9am PST. See you there!

photo above (CC-BY-SA) Scott Schiller