I thought yesterday would be a great opportunity to ask one of the pioneers of the information age what he thought would be sound technology policies for the next administration to pursue.

Instead, I got a generic paen to deregulation and letting the market work. Ironic, considering the failure of the bailout bill Monday afternoon.

So I followed up. He made a great deal of noise during his keynote over how content would be free. I asked him how this jibes with an increasingly draconian extention of copyright terms and stronger copyright enforcement (the PRO-IP act passed the Senate just a few days ago).

Leonsis dodged the question. The best he could do was recite a monologue about how his company released 20 minutes of a movie online and it led to greater sales. What does that have to do with increased copyright infringement penalties and enforcement? What does that have to do with technology policy, which his companies depend on?

I think the answer is quite easy: To Leonsis, it’s o.k. for your content to be free, but you’d better pay for his.