John C. Beiter is an entertainment attorney practicing in the music and related entertainment industries with a focus on intellectual property and contractual matters. He is a member of the law firm of Shackelford, Bowen, McKinley & Norton LLP in Nashville. His clients have included recording artists, songwriters, record companies, music publishers and various parties involved in the music industry, such as SESAC, one of the domestic musical performing rights organizations, the Americana Music Association, and the International Entertainment Buyers Association. Mr. Beiter has been selected by his peers to be included among the Best Lawyers in America in the category of Entertainment-Music, and is listed among the International Who’s Who of Entertainment Lawyers. He has spoken at copyright-related roundtable panels conducted by the U.S. Copyright Office and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. He also has spoken extensively on copyright and entertainment law matters at various music conferences, including South By Southwest, the Americana Music Association Festival and Conference, and Folk Alliance, and as guest lecturer for undergraduate and law school classes entertainment business classes. He is a former Chairman of the Nashville Bar Association Entertainment Law Committee; has served on the Board of Directors of Leadership Music; and is a member of NARAS, the CMA, the ACM, and the American Bar Association Forum on the Entertainment and Sports Industries.

Michael S. Simon is the President and CEO of Rumblefish and the Harry Fox Agency, Inc. (HFA), a premier American music rights management organization. Previously, Simon was HFA’s Senior Vice President of Business Affairs, General Counsel and Chief Strategic Officer.

Since joining HFA in 2001, Simon has focused his efforts on creating new opportunities for the company and the over 48,000 publishers it represents while also improving HFA’s traditional mechanical licensing business. He has led the company’s expansion beyond its traditional mechanical licensing business and created its Slingshot rights management service, which provides customized, outsourced solutions for music distributors. His team has developed groundbreaking licensing arrangements for online music and music video services, ringtones, Express Live recordings, lyrics, guitar tablature, background music, digital jukeboxes, and other new media opportunities.

Before joining HFA, Simon was the Executive Vice President of Business Affairs and General Counsel for Razorfish, Inc. where he guided the company’s impressive growth from a small private company of 18 people to a public company of over 2,000 employees in five years. Prior to Razorfish, he founded Simon Ventures, an artist management and consulting company, whose roster included such major label acts as the Honeydogs and the Gigolo Aunts. Before that, Simon was Senior Director of Legal Affairs at Polygram Records. He also served as an associate in the entertainment and intellectual property law practice of Levine Thall Plotkin & Menin and the corporate, litigation and entertainment practice of Rubin Baum Levin Constant & Friedman.