For some reason reporters keep using the word "conciliatory" regarding the Copyright Power's new PR approach. Juxtapositions like the following are absolutely bizarre:

That message includes taking a more conciliatory approach to Silicon Valley, and entertainment execs are planning possible junkets to Northern California to see if they can find common ground on a new bill in Washington.

In a recent New York Times op-ed, Cary Sherman, Recording Industry Association of America chief executive, panned Wikipedia and Google’s protest against the bills on their sites as “an abuse of trust and a misuse of power.”

But he took a different line in an interview with POLITICO, saying that Internet companies need content to thrive and that media companies need the Web to distribute their movies, music and TV shows.

“We need to repair the mistrust that obviously inspired a lot of the opposition to this bill,” Sherman said. “It’s either a deliberate misinformation campaign, or it’s mistrust where two sides look at the same thing and come up with different impressions about what they mean. Somehow, we have to look to bridge those differences and get on the same page.”

1. There is absolutely nothing "conciliatory" about the Copyright Power's new tone, which has been presented in multiple essays and opeds in a number of different forums. Opponents of SOPA are called liars and criminals. Wide eyed conspiracy theories are presented in which the 1800 Wikipedia editors who participated in the decision to black out the site are collectively characterized as a stalking horse.

This is not about reconciliation. These people are positively pouring gasoline on the fire. They are cementing opposition and digging a hole that will make it very difficult to compromise in the future.

2. I honestly worry that these media executives really do believe the things that they are saying. When you want something, its really easy to willfully ignore difficult facts. When millions of people are protesting you, its easier to dismiss them as misinformed than it is to accept that they might have a point. The problems that SOPA presents for freedom of expression are not straight forward - they are unintended secondary consequences of the actions the bills require. Its easy to imagine media executives brushing away concerns about fair use, fraudulent copyright claims, and blacklist scope creep as minor details.

3. I'm not at all concerned that anyone who isn't part of the Copyright Power is persuaded by these essays. Raising questions about the legitimacy of the arguments against SOPA is only going to drive people to look more carefully at the details, and the details are widely available. Normal people are going to buy the arguments of respected engineers and legal scholars before they buy the arguments of self interested corporate lobbyists and the rock stars they employ. Normal people are not that stupid, and they are not steeped in the self delusions that prevent Cary Sherman from understanding why well informed objective people "come up with different impressions" than he does of the laws he is advocating.