Digital Media Wire Announces Agenda and Speakers for Digital Music Forum East in New York, February 25-26

Music and Technology Leaders to Gather at Top Industry Event

Los Angeles, CA (Billboard Publicity Wire) February 2, 2009 -- Digital Media Wire today announced the agenda and line-up of speakers for the upcoming Digital Music Forum East (www.digitalmusicforum.com/east) to be held at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York on February 25-26, 2009.

As the music industry morphs into a fully digital domain, Digital Music Forum is the only event that focuses squarely on developments related to this industry as it grapples with its evolution into a service oriented industry and away from its product based past.

"Recent industry developments, such as iTunes and the labels' abandonment of DRM, have liberated the music industry to begin an era of innovation and experimentation to try new business models that engage consumers and move the industry forward," said Ned Sherman, CEO and Publisher of Digital Media Wire. "We are proud to host the preeminent event leading the discussion and debate on these timely topics."

The two-day event is the most comprehensive digital music conference focused on the evolution and future of digital music. The conference agenda, which includes senior participants from all the major labels, as well as leading Indie labels, social networks, online music retailers, mobile companies, artists and association heads, includes top keynotes, discussions and panels on the following topics:

•    Top Digital Music Trends

•    The State of the Digital Union

•    The Future of Internet Radio

•    Can Mobile Save The Music Industry?

•    The Pros and Cons of 360 Deals

•    Debate Club: What Changes Are Needed to Reform The Digital Copyright System?

•    Digital Music From an International Perspective

•    Licensing 2.0

•    Music Blogs: The Ultimate Digital Tastemakers

•    Online Video and Music

•    Indies in The Digital Age

The event includes a much anticipated keynote interview with Dalton Caldwell, Founder & CEO, imeem, a music-focused online social network that has raised over $50 million in funding from investors including Sequoia Capital and Warner Music Group. The company, which counts 30 million registered users, has licenses from all four major labels and many independents to offer free, ad-supported streaming music. In this rare opportunity to meet imeem's 28-year-old founder, recently featured in BusinessWeek.com's up-and-comers under 30 story, attendees will get a view of the current inner workings of the digital music industry and what role he would like imeem and other social networks and streaming services to play in the music eco-system of the future.

Other keynotes include Jim Griffin, an advisor to Warner Music Group on digital distribution and licensing models, focused on bringing an end to the litigation that has put a wedge between the major labels and their customers and replacing it with a regular flow of income for right holders. Griffin's project known as Choruss, which is being incubated at Warner and is planned to be rolled out as a non-profit with Griffin at the helm, proposes to build a small music-royalty fee into university tuition payments received from students, and, if successful, could be expanded to make ISPs the collector of the fees.

Attendees are over 400 senior decision-makers from record labels, music publishers, producers and distributors, technology companies, wireless companies, rights organizations, industry bodies, radio, advertising, attorneys, artists, investors and venture capitalists.

Speakers include:

Jay Baage, VP, Content, Digital Media Wire

Anthony Batt, CEO & Co-Founder, Buzznet

Rich Benglogg, President, A2IM

Aydin Caginalp, Partner, Entertainment & Media Group, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP

Dalton Caldwell, Founder/CEO, imeem

David Card, VP & Principal Analyst, Forrester Research

Ted Cohen, Managing Partner, TAG Strategic

Jim Cooperman, COO, Wind-Up

Brad Duea, President, Napster

Jeffrey Epstein, VP, Business Development & Artist Acquisition, Elite Artist Services

Tom Erskine, Director of Global Sales, Music Division, Nokia

Adam Farrell, Head of Marketing, The Beggars Group & Matador Records

Mark Fischer, Attorney, Fish & Richardson

Andrew Fisher, CEO, Shazam

John Fleckenstein, SVP, International, BMG Label Group

David Goodman, President, Digital Media & Integrated Marketing, CBS Radio

Jim Griffin, Managing Director, OneHouse, LLC

Dan Hoffman, EVP, Bus. & Legal Affairs, Razor and Tie Direct

Christian Jorg, SVP, New Media & Commerce, Island Def Jam Music Group

Mark Lam, Chairman & CEO, Live365.com

Matt Laszuk, IRIS Distribution

Zahavah Levine, VP, Business Development & General Counsel, YouTube

Rob Lewis, CEO & Co-Founder, Omnifone

Cecily Mak, Senior Counsel, Legal & Business Affairs, RealNetworks

Dinesh Mathew, Senior Director, Consumer Insight, MTV

Jim Merlis, President & CEO, Big Hassle

Ziv Navoth, SVP, Marketing & Bus. Dev., Bebo / AOL's People Networks

David Oxenford, Partner, Davis Wright Tremaine, LLP

Massimiliano Pellegrini, CEO, Dada Entertainment

Matthew Perpetua, Founder, Fluxblog.org

Michael Petricone, SVP, Government Affairs, Consumer Electronics Association

Chris Phenner, EVP, Business Development, Thumbplay

Jonathan Potter, Executive Director, Digital Media Association

Kelli Richards, President & CEO, The All Access Group

Jay Rosenthal, General Counsel, NMPA

Maurice Russell, VP, Business Affairs & Licensing, Harry Fox Agency

Greg Scholl, CEO, The Orchard

Syd Schwartz, SVP, Digital Strategy, EMI North America

Matt Schwartz, Manager, Music Programming & Business Development, Verizon

Ned Sherman, Co-Founder, CEO & Publisher, Digital Media Wire

Ralph Simon, Chairman Emeritus, Mobile Entertainment Forum Americas

Michael Spiegelmann, Head of Music, Yahoo! Music

Mike Tunnicliffe, Partner, Tuna Music LLC / The Sheppard LLC

Amaechi Uzoigwe, Co-Founder, Definitive Jux

Eliot Van Buskirk, Editor, Listening Post, Wired.com

Anthony Volodkin, Founder/CEO, The Hype Machine

Pete Watson, Head of Business Development, Research in Motion

Jeremy Welt, SVP, New Media, Warner Bros. Records

Tim Westergren, Chief Strategy Officer & Founder, Pandora

Event sponsors and media partners include Manatt, Loeb & Loeb, Macrovision, Dada Entertainment, Fish & Richardson, Mozes, DCIA, Davis Wright Tremaine, Consulate General of Sweden, Filter Magazine, KCRW, A2IM, NARIP, UCLA Anderson School of Management, Music Connection, NVPR, TAG Strategic, Parks Associates, Midem, Women in Music, Billboard Publicity Wire, SoundExchange, NY:MIEG, and EMF.

For complete agenda, registration and event details please visit: http://www.digitalmusicforum.com/east.

Other prominent Digital Media Wire events include the LA Games Conference; NY Games Conference; Future of Television East; Future of Television West; Digital Music Forum West; and Digital Media Conference.

About Digital Media Wire, Inc:

Digital Media Wire is an events, news, and publishing company serving the digital entertainment & media industry since May 2000. Digital Media Wire produces executive forums featuring the leading executives in digital media and entertainment. Digital Media Wire also publishes an authoritative daily email newsletter and industry directory. For more information, please visit www.dmwmedia.com.

Contact:

Hal Bringman

NVPR

323-851-6877

hal (at) nvpr (dot) com

OR

Ellen Gildersleeve

Digital Media Wire, Inc.

310-855-0033

ellen (at) digitalmediawire (dot) com

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