Have you heard of “Girl Talk”.  He’s this musician who specializes in sampling and “digital mashups”.  He put out an album in which he samples a plethora of other songs without paying royalties or asking for the label’s permission.  Some people in the industry are up in arms about his blatant copyright infringement.  Most of us, though, are just amazed he hasn’t been sued yet.  So you’d think a panel titled “Why hasn’t the music industry sued ‘Girl Talk’” would be a really compelling, right?  Wrong!

Although in theory this panel would have been rife with healthy debate and poignant theories, it proved to be a painful and colossal waste of an hour of my life. The moderator (and I use that term VERY loosely) was like a harried kindergarten teacher on his first day of work.  He was unable to keep his panel of esteemed judges or his crowd in check.  Although two of the panelists were cool, two of them were lawyers who thought it worth the audience’s time to hear them wax eloquent about obscure case law and legal definitions.  It literally got to the point where with five minutes remaining, a girl raised her hand and asked “So why hasn’t the music industry sued ‘Girl Talk’?”  Oh yeah, was that why we were here?

Although I walked away learning more about “fair use” and copyright infringement, I believe it was the witty, sardonic entertainment lawyers I sat next to that educated me more than the actual panel.  In fact, the complete lack of cohesion or inability to actually arrive at a point was the most entertaining aspect of this panel.

So I have no wisdom to share from this panel other than to say that you should never put two law professors on a panel unless you’re looking to punish your audience with long-winded, irrelevant commentaries.