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UK Schools to Indoctrinate Respect for IP Laws?
4/3PI*R^3 writes: "Alan Docherty, the editor of Internet Freedom News has an interesting piece in Salon's Technology & Business section. Apparently, the Creative Industries Task Force wants teenagers in the UK to learn the evils downloading MP3's, e-mailing newspaper articles, and exchanging JPEGs. As quoted from Prof. Jessica Litman of Wayne State University, "Many of them believe, for example, that if you buy a CD, you buy the right to share it." Minds are so much easier to manipulate when they are young." Heh. For the record, since I've read some of Litman's work, I should point out that her statement quoted here is definitely intended to be ironic.
We now have a hugely prescriptive National Curriculum that dictates what must be taught and how many hours should be spent on certain subjects. All of this is coupled with enormous amounts of paperwork.
The result has been to narrow the subjects taught to UK kids as a whole, and to remove much of the flair with which some of these subjects were taught. Not surprisingly, we now have a teacher shortage as well.
"New Labour" here in the UK appear committed to mass-producing corporate drones with as little individuality as possible, and at the lowest possible cost - our Education services are woefully underfunded and stretched to the limits. For example, my own school will now be renting the taps (faucets) in the kids toilets because it will save us a few pounds over the next few years. Our 10 year olds are being taught in classes of 36-37 kids. And our school is succesful, over-subscribed, and turning away applicants!
At this rate, it won't be long before they are insisting on Japanese-style "rote" education in enormous class rooms.
The point remains that breaching copyright is still against the law. Just because you're ripping off a corporation, it doesn't become ok.. nor does it change from an being an illegal activity to a moral anti-capitalist gesture.
I still fail to understand why people would rather use a product illegally while complaining about the ethics of that product's sale, rather than just finding an alternative solution or method of purchase. If you feel you're being taken for a ride over CD prices, buy them online, import them, whatever. By all means take a stand, but don't actively make the problem worse..
Being in small bands and struggling to get by gives you a new perspective on this isuue - you realise that people have no sense of proportion and won't stop to think 'this person is operating on virtually no funding from a backroom, I think I'll help to financially support him in return for the product he worked hard to produce'. Once they get into the habit of taking copies of everything, we all suffer. Who do you think is less likely to be harmed by this behaviour - Joe Public, or BigBadCorporation(tm)? And who, out of those two would you really like to see prosper, due to the often innovative and exciting products they produce?
Exactly.
So maybe it would be a good idea to consider exactly *why* you feel teaching children the law is a bad thing...
My experiences going through the educational system here (in Sweden) and working as a lower grade teacher is the exact opposite of what this article lays out. Long before there was internet there were xerox machines, wildy used in schools to give the kids an education on a stretched budget. Kindergarten: coloring books are kept in locked rooms so that the kids wont get to the originals. Because the originals are used to make copies that the kids are actually allowed to color in. Lower grade school: different kinds of excircise sheets and such are copied for the class. I think I was about ten years old when the teacher first layed out the details of the xeroxing laws (something to the effect of: no more than 30 pages or 10% whichever is lowest, may be xeroxed in more than 10 copies for classroom use), and then announcing that theyre now breaking this rule to give us an education. University: teachers compile their own anthologies of xeroxes pages from books, placing them handy next to the xerox machines for student use saying: "we could compile an official antology but that would cost a lot more, you are only allowed to read those xeroxed antologies here, but if u were to xerox them and take them home, we wouldn't know about that now would we". Thoughout every level of education the message is hammered in loud and clear: your right to an education, to knowledge, on a strained budget, comes first, not the copyright laws.
If you have 3 pepsis, and you drink 1 pepsi, how many cool refreshing pepsis do you have left?
Pepsi?
Partial credit!
First: Software and media piracy are illegal, and of course young people should be made aware of what is legal or not. There is a difference between this, and trying to teach children what is immoral and what is not.
The problem is that this sort of illegal activity is not in any way universially accepted as morally wrong. It is laws that were made for protecting the income of artists and corporations.. much in the same way that patent-laws were created.
It is still in some countries regarded as totally legal and within fair-use to share IP-protected material among friends as long as you don't charge for it.
I generally accept IP-laws as I believe it makes it easier to make a living out of arts, and thus making our quality of art higher. It is however a political issue, not a generally accepted truth, and thus should NOT be taught in public schools.
Morality is a personal issue, and I don't buy arguments that breaking the law is always immoral, because this would mean that doing political satire in a country where this is illegal, is immoral.
The only things that should be taught are issues that are beyond common politics. For example: murder, theft, etc..
Before tries to make the assumption; sw/media-piracy == theft, I have to say that this comparison is political as the person being "stolen" from in the act of pirating still has a copy of his/her own.. that is, it does not transfer property.
Naturally such a document is a magnet to everyone with an axe to grind. It seems like everyone has something they want put in the National Curriculum. Most of these things are fairly worthy, like road safety, how to apply for a job, how compound interest works, and how to extract cube roots without a calculator. Most people think that their favourite author ought to go in the English section. And so on.
As a result of all this the first version of the NC had a bad case of bloat brought on by creeping featurism. After that a revised version was bought out which was slimmed down to the things that the education academics think that kids actually need to know. Copyright law is not (AFAIK) on the list.
There is still a lot of pressure for feature creep in the NC, but the people in charge of it seem to have learned how to say "no". You still get pressure groups of one sort or another popping up and asking for their pet cause to go in the NC, but nobody takes any notice. This is just another similar suggestion, and I don't think its going to go anywhere.
Paul
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
Don't assume that kids are little angels who wouldn't do something just because an authority figure tells them not to (I'd like to cite drug use and underage drinking and smoking as examples of situations where kids go out to do exactly the opposite of what they're told is wrong). You might persuade some kids to stop, but you'll probably make it more appealing to others.
Whether it's morally right or wrong to share MP3s/photos, the fact is that it's still illegal.
Actually there are lots of circumstances where sharing is perfectly legal, in addition to being moral. Kids should be taught to understand that laws and social mores are complicated things and require the individual to apply a little critical thinking when venturing into the grey areas.
I am SO glad now that I went to a school where HD Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" was actually a required text and where there was no DARE program. Kids shouldn't be taught anything in school except academics, trade skills, arts, and whatever you'd call what it is you learn in Phys. Ed.
Morals, right and wrong, how to deal with bullies, how to say no to drugs are all lessons that belong at home. And if the parents don't teach them this stuff, well tough. Then the kids figure it out for themselves. As a parent it disgusts me how much time I have to spend with my child going over what she "learned" in school and applying critical thinking skills to it so that my daughter has a chance to form her own opinions about what she's been told.
I do not have a signature
As long as they teach about fair use it is not a problem. That way it's easier for the "young" to realise how stupid DMCA-style laws are.
-- Cheer, Cheer, The Red and the White.
I have to wonder which big media company thought this idea up...I'd be very surprised if the school system came up with it on their own.
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// Agent Green (Ian / IU7)
Kids putting copyright symbols on drawings and papers? What's next...intellectual property contracts within a school system?
Before the DMCA came along and gave draconian legal controls to big companies, copyrights served only to protect the economic interests of content authors, granting a temporary monopoly to foster creative works in writing and the arts which were supposed to eventually be released into the public domain. They used to work just like patents...and fortunately patents still expire 17 years.
Regardless, I hope to see this one fall hard. I remember copying tapes on my dual-deck boom box as a kid, and it didn't hurt anyone. What the major media companies have to do is add enough value to their content to make the package worth buying.
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7 / KB1JQO)
// IEEE 802.3: All 10base Are Belong To Us