Derek Slater went to the Digital Music Forum and didn't even get me a lousy t-shirt. However, he did write an excellent post on his impressions of the conference and how well the participants understand the issues involved (Digital Music Forum: What the Industry Players Do and Don't Get):

What was most amazing to me was hearing RealNetwork's Sean Ryan talk about how awful the standards fragmentation is while Real implements its own Helix DRM standard. The subscription services are also all waiting for the next step of increased portability, with services capable of delivering files direct to any digital media device - but what about the flexibility of consumers getting to port and manipulate files as they wish? And when is this next step going to occur?

I also was surprised that several vendors consider the size of the services' catalogs only a minor stumbling block. DiMA's Jonathan Potter was the only one to really focus on that, giving an insightful speech about the challenges of mechanical licensing and "double-dipping" for mechanical and performance licenses for online music. The services still cannot provide whatever you want whenever you want it, and Potter argued that any gap in the catalog will detract from the entire service's value, because it will frustrate consumers.

Read the whole thing.