Ed Felten on Educating students about copyright

Paul Beard points out a new entry from Ed Felten about "The Future of Filesharing":

The best role for a university in the copyright wars is to do what a university does best: educate students. When I talk about education, I don't mean a five-minute lecture at freshman initiation. I don't mean adding three paragraphs on copyright to that rulebook that nobody reads. I don't mean scare tactics. What I do mean is a real, substantive discussion of the copyright system.

My experience is that students are eager to have serious, intellectual discussions about why we have the copyright system we have. They will take seriously the economic justification for copyright, if it
is explained to them in a non-hysterical way. They'll appreciate the wisdom of the limitations on copyright, such as fair use and the idea/expression dichotomy; and in so doing they'll realize why there are not exceptions for other things.

I'm not sure I agree that it will make a difference at this point - I think sharing music files has likely achieved too much of a lifestyle-as-usual status among students to be derailed by any talk about the legal or economic system.