The Keynote Address is an overview of the issues relating to and goals of copyrighting appraisal reports, and represents a good introduction to the subject. The panel discussion "Stop data theft: Copyrighting appraisal reports" is a more in-depth exploration of the issues and features a la mode counsel, an attorney-advisor to the U.S. Copyright Office, an intellectual property law professor and more.

The ultimate goal of the effort to get a small but significant percentage of appraisal reports registered with the U.S. Copyright Office is not to shut off the spigot of valuation information. The goal is to correct a glaring inefficiency in the market for appraisal data — namely, that you as an appraiser are not being compensated for your intellectual property. All appraisers will benefit as lenders, management companies, data miners, scrapers and resellers have to come to the table and bargain for what belongs to you.