Some random impressions from the first day of PFF's Aspen Summit:

--A post-Grokster detente seems to be holding. The decision gave the content industry a degree of comfort that copyright law will protects its creative content, and it gave the IT industry comfort that P2P and technology will not be regulated out of existence. The "intent" test of Grokster will, of course, be in its implementation. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court appears to have done the impossible: get the content, IT and consumer electronics industry to sit in the same room together without full-scale rhetorical warfare from breaking out.

--The telecommunications debate has switched to franchising and "net neutrality." The debates of yore--undbundling, wholesale rate regulation are bad memories. The FCC's DSL Order combined with Brand X's vindication of cable modem as an "information service" makes the net neutrality debate come to the forefront. Jeffrey Citron from Vonage argued most adamantly for a mandate, and against the practices of Clearwire. (For a counter-argument, see "Let Clearwire Be Clearwire.")

--Government entering what would otherwise be private digital markets continues to be a problem.

--"Politicians don't understand the digital economy." Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour