Paramount to Law Professors: Let's Talk About Copyright Infringement

In a slightly odd reaction to the public anti-SOPA backlash, movie studio Paramount has decided to try to open a dialogue discussing copyright infringement.  The odd part is that they chose law professors to dialogue with.  Details are in the article from the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The article suggests that the strategy of talking to law professors, as opposed to tech experts (or, possibly, average students) will not result in anything useful:

“I don’t understand why, if they truly wanted to engage consumers, they would approach law professors, especially those at the most elite schools,” Mr. Goldman wrote in an e-mail interview. “There are at least a half-dozen ways that Paramount could get better marketplace feedback than eliciting the perspectives of law students, which reinforces why I think they intended to do more talking than listening.”

The strategy suggests to me that Paramount seeks to find new ways to bend the law to their favor: Publishers as well as movie studios have all taken to similar reactions to the public’s fervent resistance against any laws that would control or restrict the presentation or use of media, citing even the slightest new law or regulation as a violation of fair use and basic freedoms; the media moguls, having decided the public is unrealistic and unreasonable in their demands, have turned unilaterally to the government to protect their property.

However, government laws have proven so far ineffective in exerting any real control or providing protection against media piracy, prompting the moguls to seek new and inventive ideas that will work within the system… therefore, the consulting with the fresh young minds of future lawmakers and their teachers.

It’s truly a shame that both sides of the media consumption market continue to fight each other, instead of working together to find a mutually-equitable “trust, with verification” position that will eventually result in a marketplace that makes sense… hopefully, before the Sun goes nova or the Moon falls out of orbit, rendering the issue moot.