The Madrid Summit was outside my usual realm of intellectual property law, but the change served to remind me that while the copyfight is but a small part of the picture, the principles we're fighting for are more than music.

The conference logo, pictured, was a circled "D", often used in the same place a (TM) or (R) would indicate trademark status. Since it's not quite so easy to instill and protect democracy as to register a trademark, all of us who care about democracy face a big task.

At least a part of that task is communication -- communicating with other democratic citizens and with other people seeking democracy. The Internet is not a panacea; none of us is naive enough to assert that. It is, however, a powerful medium for two-way communication and that communication can promote human rights (including by reporting on abuses), support understanding of democratic alternatives to terror, and help communities to make their own, non-terror choices. I don't think it's stretching too far to say that protecting against abuses of privacy, copyright or trademark online strengthens these tools of democracy.

Thanks especially to Martín Varsavsky, Joi Ito, and Marko Ahtisaari for making this happen and for inviting me to participate.