I serve as my university's registered DMCA agent. This gives me opportunities to educate students on this issue–but only one at a time and then only after the RIAA or SONY or whoever has alleged copyright infringement by a student. I believe it was last summer that I received a DVD in the mail from a group (it may have been the RIAA) with the recommendation that I use it to educate our students on this issue. I looked at it and threw it in the trash. It used scare tactics such as a student expressing regret for illegal downloading because it got him into legal trouble and his legal debts forced him to drop out of college. It also showed downloaders being led away in handcuffs! Nowhere did it mention that our copyright system is more subtle, more ambiguous, and less constricting than as presented in this video.

I mentioned this to Dr. Kirwan and quoted Sir Philip Sidney's “An Apology for Poetry,” his famous essay published posthumously in 1595. Sidney wrote that “Poetry … is … a speaking picture, with this end: to teach and delight.” Surely this dual purpose can be imputed to the “speaking pictures” produced by movie studios and recording companies! And just as surely these entertainment industries have the resources to produce lessons about intellectual property (including fair use) that delight as much as they teach. Dr. Kirwan reported that another “educational” DVD is headed to my mailbox this summer, presumably one without images of handcuffed students.

In other words, not only is the entertainment industry expecting universities to act as their police and disciplinarians, they also want us to be their propagandists. No matter how balanced a view of IP this new production gives (and I expect it to be one-sided), a stand-alone didactic video is not going to get the message across. The movie industry is very adept at product placement. Maybe it can devise ways to place meaningful, helpful information about copyright in their myriad productions. They certainly haven't tried. It might even improve the quality of many of their products–especially the summer blockbusters and would-be blockbusters that students heading to college in the fall will be watching.

Not until the third week of April or so did I realize that not only does my wife have to recover from her serious illness, but I also have to recover those parts of my life that I put on hold for well over a month. Those parts include the mundane such as spring yard work. They also include reassuring, even comforting, routines such as cooking a dinner rather than benefiting from the incredible generosity of friends and neighbors that has filled a freezer with more meals than we have been able to eat. A steady stream of family members who have come to assist have provided me with welcome opportunities to put together Sunday feasts. And the suspended parts of my life include the professional–such as keeping with my routine of recent years of participating in ALA's annual Legislative Day. And such as participating in the annual copyright issues conference sponsored by the Center for Intellectual Property of the University of Maryland's University College.