 One of the things that we say, again, I've said four times today, I may as well make it five, policy is made by who shows up and I just want to express my appreciation not only for all the panelists and speakers today, but for these guys to come the first day back with Congress come back in session, they were able to squeeze away, squeeze some time away from the Hill to come down here and speak with you and speak to the folks watching online and I just have so much appreciation for that and so much appreciation for the people who make this conference possible. It takes a lot of work, a lot of staff time, we're able to do it on a shoestring, the hosts here at New America have been amazing. The sponsors who allow this thing to happen are critical and I hope that everybody feels that as a community we are a lot better off to have this ability to have these conversations and do it in a public way in a transparent way that allows kind of dialogue to happen so I just really appreciate all the staff that worked to put this on, the sponsors who make it happen and obviously all speakers and participants. With that, I'm going to turn over to a moderator, Mike Nelson from Bluebird Government and also, I almost forgot to say, a professor at Georgetown in the CCT Department, our partner in this summit, now we're going to be back at Georgetown next year and for years to come. So thanks to Georgetown as well. Thanks, Mike. Well, thank you very much. I think there's no question that this panel has the toughest job. Because of time constraints, we've got about 20, 25 minutes max. Our challenge is to cover all the topics that have not been covered so far today and to do it in bumper sticker format. So we're going to try to quickly cover some of the hot issues that are coming, the ones we haven't talked about already. And we're also going to try to give you some sense of how this community can be more effective in working on the Hill. When I worked on the Hill back in the late 80s, early 90s on the Senate Science Subcommittee, I discovered that there were two groups that were particularly bad at talking to Capitol Hill, the scientists and the musicians. Perhaps it's because they're creative people, they're really, they just think that the art and the science and the excitement of it should be enough to convince policymakers to do the right thing. They aren't necessarily part of the political process. So we'll spend some time on the nuts and bolts of influencing the Hill. We have an incredible panel today and I'm very glad they can be here and give us a sense of where we're headed. The names and affiliations are on this little insert because we had put together this panel at the last minute. Our first speaker will be Stephanie Winsler. She is the staff director of the Congressional Arts Caucus and she also works very closely with Representative Louise Slaughter, who is the co-chairman of the Congressional Arts Caucus. This is a pretty extraordinary organization, 185 members. That's about 45% of the House. If you can get 45% of the House to agree on anything these days, that's a raging consensus. So she's going to talk a little bit about what she sees coming down the pike. We just have a few minutes, so just two or three things that are going to be different in two years. Okay. And thank you Future of Music Coalition for inviting me and for the New America Foundation for hosting this and the important work they're doing. My name is Stephanie Winsler. I work for Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, who's the co-chair of the Congressional Arts Caucus. Like Mike said, we're actually at 188 members. We're bipartisan members that, you know, for those keeping count, that's 42 Republicans. So we are building our ranks there. And what we do is we focus on, we keep our finger on the pulse of the artist community, mainly through groups like Future of Music Coalition, on anything legislative that's coming down the pike and through the House representatives. Primarily we focus on federal funding for the arts, such as the National Endowment for the Arts. And what we're seeing for the lame duck, I don't foresee, and you know, I'm not here to speculate, but I don't foresee too much going on with arts in the lame duck. If sequestration happens, there's the across-the-board 8.2% cut. So if that were to happen, you know, all discretionary funding would see that, such as the National Endowment for the Arts or the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. But you know, if that happens is not my place to say. Going into the 113th Congress, in the House, we, you know, there's still a Republican majority. So I, I thinking the priorities of the Republican majority might stay the same. We are looking at two things. We have the fiscal year 2013 funding that we still need to wrap up. The continuing resolution goes until the end of March. Right now the National Endowment for the Arts is funded at FY12 level, which is $146 million. The President has requested $154 million for FY13. So we'll see, you know, when we wrap up FY13 where that funding will land. And, but at the same time, we're going to be seeing FY 2014 funding coming out. So the President's budget will be coming out at the beginning of the year, as well as the Republican and Democratic budgets in the House and the Senate. In the past, the House Republican budget offered to eliminate the NEA, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Fortunately for the Arts Caucus that didn't come to fruition in legislation form. And so the appropriations process of the next step around March members will start making requests to the Appropriations Committee saying we recommend so much money being appropriated for arts funding. That's something where the Arts Caucus steps in. We, every year we've written a letter saying we recommend such, such amount of money to be appropriated. Last year, we recommended the President's amount was $154 million. And we'll do some calculus when we see the President's budget come out when we make our request for FY 2014. That request will be taken in by the Appropriation Committees. And then the bills will start going through the process, you know, May, June, July. So when we're looking going forward, it's important for people to kind of pay attention to the federal funding arts process and reaching out to their member of Congress, be it musicians or individual artists. I believe that members respond mostly to their constituents themselves. So hearing the personal success of an NEA grant is something that members need to hear directly from you. And also Arts Advocacy Day is something that advocacy groups have put together every year. So you could become involved if you haven't yet before on April 9th. And, you know, future in music and I'm sure other arts groups will have more information on that. But that's something where thousands of people come to the Hill every day and advocate for the arts. Okay. Thank you very much for keeping that very concise and very useful. Okay. Laurent Crenshaw is our next speaker. This is a bipartisan panel. He works with Representative Darrell Issa on the Republican side. He's from California. And Laurent has been on the Hill for about 10 years, more than seven of them with Darrell Issa who's been a real leader on digital issues. And I'm very glad he's here to give us his vision of what we're going to see in the next couple of years. Sure. Thank you both to the Future Music Coalition and to the New America Foundation for having me here. And thanks for that introduction. I really appreciate it. It's kind of scary to think that it's been 10 years now that I've been in this crazy industry. So I'm going to quickly try to go as you sort of noted over how I see things going over the next two years. And I really think that both from a legislative standpoint and from a broader how the public interacts with Congress standpoint that we're at a really interesting time. And Congress is sort of slow to get on the boat for just about everything. And so they've been slow to get on the boat for technology and how technology can create a greater degree of engagement between the public and government. But recently there have been a couple of platforms. One that was actually championed by my boss by Congressman Issa called started off as called Project Madison. We did it about a year ago and it basically and it's evolved from there. But in essence it is a sort of Wikipedia slash Reddit type of platform for legislation. So a member of Congress comes up with a bill. They want to get input from the public on it. I know it's a crazy interesting concept to actually get input from the public before doing something. But you know we want to do that. So you post it in this platform and then it's online. People can go at it look at the bill. So if it's something dealing with royalty rates in the future and the member posts it you can go there and say I like this portion. I don't like this portion. Why are you changing this. Why won't you change this. And you can actually engage in a discussion. And so what we've used it for a few different bills now. And so we actually we get the input in. We look at the you know look at all of the suggestions and we say oh this one's great this one's great. This one not so much. And we have in multiple instances actually incorporated those changes and use them going forward in the bills that we've actually introduced and that have moved forward in the Congress. We ended up rolling the congressman I should say ended up actually taking this code this platform and putting it into a foundation. The OpenGov foundation and now the website TechCrunch actually just recently rolled out their version of Project Madison that they're using for various legislation. And I think even the New Zealand government has taken this code as well this open source code and started using it as a way to generate a greater degree of input and communications with the public. So I really think and it's my hope that over the next two years that this kind of becomes the norm you know because the task that members of Congress the task that we as staff have is an enormous one when you really look at trying to get it right trying to get whatever legislation that we're doing right in order to make things better rather than you know to create a situation that we perhaps didn't see is occurring a few years down down the line. And so that's what I'm really excited about this and I think a lot of people are and we hope to see this platform and this concept grow over the next couple of years. And it was used to write an alternative to the Stop Online Piracy Act. Wasn't wasn't that part of the reason it was created? That is correct. Yeah. You're right that that's when that was the evolution that basically that's where it came out of basically in response to that because it was the open act and that's really what we did in order to differentiate the two. Yeah. Otherwise one thing that I know that our office is interested in doing is sort of looking at the issue of fair use especially for home use of DVDs and CDs and whatnot because I it's my understanding recently that I believe the Librarian of Congress sort of came out with an opinion that really muddled the waters there as to whether or not when you rip a CD that you purchased and put it into a digital format if that actually is something that's very useful if it's if you should be able to do that. My boss thinks that you should and you know it's something that we want to work where necessary with other legislature other legislators in order to move that forward to make it clear that you can do that. I think other issues that are broader that still will apply to your industry of course are dealing with privacy you know whether it's Pandora or Spotify or any new sort of app that comes out in the future that tries to create like a contextual process or that's taking some of your data of the data that you're putting out there in order to put a song with it. You know the broader issue of privacy applies even in that context as to whether or not that data is accessible or should be accessible and what limits there should be on it. So that's probably something I think that will still end up at least addressing again at some point and otherwise I know that there's a lot of talk earlier on the Internet Radio Fairness Act and I'm not going to really go back down that road because I think that it's the bill you know itself is great because the discussion needs to be had on these rates and whether it's you know just how do you move the industry forward in general and so I think it's a really good thing that it's out there my boss is an original co-sponsor of it. So that's one of those things that we you know it's a discussion I'm sure that we're going to have probably in the weeks of the lame duck and then probably also in the next Congress as well and I heard Senator Wyden earlier say certainly that he wanted it out there in the format that it was in order to be something that can generate the conversation to make sure again that we get it right. So those are a few things that I don't want to talk too long right now I realize we have constraints so. Well thanks again very crisp very covered a lot of ground. Our third panelist is Shana Winters. She's wearing several different hats today. She's here partly because up until 2009 she was counsel on the House Judiciary Committee on the subcommittee for intellectual property. Since then she's been working on the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House and working very closely with Howard Berman who of course we all know has been very deeply involved in content issues over the years. And unfortunately she's going to have to leave very quickly. So we're going to let her have her say give us a sense of what you see coming in the next two years. I'll reiterate the thanks to future of music and also to all of you who are bearing with us at this late hour. I just would take off and say that I believe within the next couple of weeks the Judiciary Committee has laid the predicate to have a hearing on the Internet Radio Bill. I know there was a little excitement about that this morning and I believe that that's what the hearing is designed to flesh out. And following off the heels of that issue probably in the next Congress it might extend to the general performance right which I know many of you are interested in. Also people should keep in mind that there is I believe somewhat of a must pass bill if it's going to happen which is the Satellite Home Viewer Act by the end of next Congress so that'll likely be on the agenda for the Judiciary Committee. And I mean maybe this is good segue into the next question but part of what forms the opinions of what should be considered by the committees are things that people like yourselves bring to our attention as important issues so we're hopeful I believe that you can come to us and help us figure out some of the other issues that are out there that you'd like us to flesh out. Okay well let's go from there and do a little interactive polling here so we only have five minutes so we're going to touch on five really big issues and I'm going to ask each of you whether you think these pieces of legislation will get out of committee and to the floor of the House and what I want is either thumbs up it will happen thumbs down it definitely won't happen thumbs sideways who the hell knows and I want the audience to do this too except your question is do you think it's a good idea for this to happen okay so thumbs up if you think it's a good idea thumbs down if you think it's a bad idea and sideways if you don't know so we've had this discussion on and off all day about the Internet Radio Fairness Act so what are the chances that over the next two years that bill is going to get to the floor of the house thumbs up if you think so thumbs down sideways going to do this okay you know we're an original co-sponsor but anything can happen you know and it's really early on in the process but I'm confident that we will deal with the issue and create a greater degree of parity and fairness for all of the major parties involved okay and the audience thumbs up thumbs down totally mixed okay so another issue you mentioned which I think is a really hot issue is what are we going to do about fair use there's all this ambiguity about fair use and the Supreme Court is arguing right now in the Kurtzing case about whether fair use might change in some very important ways we think there might be congressional action to put into law something else about fair use either not one way or the other just do you think we might see legislation on fair use it might depend what the Supreme Court says it might depend okay that's important does anybody out the audience want to see the Congress try to define fair use okay you talked about the NEA funding big issue do you think we're going to see stable funding for NEA thumbs up or thumbs down is that hopeful hopeful I don't know if we're going to see stable funding for much of anything seven weeks go okay I think I know what the audience would say up first okay we got unanimity on something okay so the other another hot issue is in education well actually as we've talked about education programs there was a net neutrality has also been discussed today this is an issue near and dear to my heart I spent a year and a half at the FCC and clearly making sure that the internet is open to all content is a powerful and important concept whether you need legislation for that or not I don't know the FCC has taken action in this area there's a lot of talk on the hill about doing something from your side the Republican side you want to stop any legislation on the Democratic side we have a number of proposal to put into law requirements the internet be open do any of you think we're going to see action on net neutrality legislation in the next two years I would say we we saw a resolution come through the house that passed the house will they revisit that this next Congress and that's where I'm here if it becomes a hot topic possibly but they did we we did that in the house once it didn't go anywhere in the Senate so okay and last but not least are we going to see sopa 2.0 okay well thank you very much for playing along with this and thank you the audience okay now the last lightning round one last question if people in the audience or in the music community are marching up to the hill to speak about any of these five issues or anything else what are the two things they should remember when they walk in the door of a congressman's office and I'll start with you Laurent because you've been up there longest have I been longest oh man okay the two things that you should remember when you're going to see a member I would basically say that you know just remember to that they generally speaking want to be helpful and want to work with you in order to get to a solution so that's one thing so don't be jaded before you go in there and the other thing I would say is to be concise because we deal with a lot of issues of staff members of Congress deal with a lot of issues in general on a daily basis and so make sure that your message is clear and crisp when you go I think when you go up each of you has a personal story and I think that's very helpful for the member to hear the personal story and let me let me think to add on to those that economic benefits of the arts are being promoted through advocacy agencies the National Endowment for the Arts that information's out there grab on to that and bring it to your member of Congress and provide your own story on how you know that you as a musician or your arts organization has benefited your community because it undoubtedly has share that story so if they go to the floor they can share it with other members of Congress and you know they can see that the actual impact on their constituents in their community and if I can add to that I worked on the hill for five years and one of the things I learned very early on is you come to the hill and learn to hate your friends because sometimes they come up with very ineffective arguments for things you believe in so do a better job you know give them an effective bumper sticker seven or eight words that says what needs to be done if you don't do that the other side is going to come up with one for you and come armed with at least two good factoids preferably true the ones about economic benefit are very valuable particularly now and then the last thing is never forget that you're not just up there to say I've got a problem or the country's got a problem because at the end of a very eloquent discussion about why there's a problem the congressman or the senator or the staff person is going to turn to you and say oh what am I supposed to do about it make sure you have an answer and make sure it reflects what committee they're on what they can actually do don't go in and talk to somebody on the judiciary committee about science funding you know make sure you come in with the the well posed again single sentence on what you'd like to see them do because they can take that and then they can go out and on the floor of the house say well I was talking to so and so who told me that the most important thing I can do is and then other people will pick that up and repeat it because that's the viral spread of a good idea and it still works on the hill even without the internet actually works person to person as well as on Facebook and social media. Thank you very much. This is great content in 20 minutes. Thank you very much for your participation.