After last night's copyright town hall in Toronto, the press (Search Engine's Jesse Brown, the Globe and Mail, and I) had a chance to scrum Industry Minister Tony Clement.

(My apologies for the quality of the video. It was my first attempt at recording radio and video, while trying to adjust levels, look at my notebook and ask questions at the same time! I had to drop the video a couple of times in order to do it all. Clearly, I need to find a better way to do this.)

The government is in the middle of cross country consultations as it prepares a new copyright bill. Most of these are invite-only roundtable discussions, but the event last night was open to the first 300 or so people who registered online.

As several people have pointed out, including Jesse Brown, the music industry was quick to get to the registration list. Here's what the University of Ottawa's Michael Geist says:

My own view is that it was so over-the-top that their message was lost in light of such an obvious orchestrated attempt to stack the deck. This was not a real townhall that brought together differing views, but rather an all-out effort by the industry to scoop up the available seats, guarantee themselves a dominant voice, and exclude many alternative voices in the process.

You can watch the town hall for yourself by checking out this wmv file.

Were you there at the town hall, or did you watch it online? What do you think of Clement's comments in the video? Let us know by posting a comment below.