File-Sharing Ethics Taught In Classrooms?

shams42 writes "According to the New York Times, the movie/record industries are taking their concerns about P2P file sharing into the classroom (free reg. req.) Among other activities, they are planning to play a game called 'Starving Artist' with 5th-9th graders, where students come up with an idea for a record album, cover art, and lyrics only to be told by teachers that the album is already available for download for free."

Comments

Yeah, I've got a game too.

[GameGod0]

I think I'm going to brainwash little kids too.

We'll play a game called "Let's sue 12-year old girls!"

Re:Yeah, I've got a game too.

[BLAMM!]

Because the compensation greatly outweighs the service. I see no problem with fair and equitable trades, no matter what the service. Unfortunately, the music labels are screwing both the artists and the consumers with inflated prices for overhyped crap and unfair contracts. And now that both of the latter have, through new technologies, a means to bypass the former altogether, they are resorting to bullying and threats to maintain their position.

Real commerce is sustained by providing something that attracts your customers to buy from you. It does not include lawsuits, and now lame, biased brainwashing of children (thank $DIETY my kids are homeschooled), to force people to deal with them.

People are voting with their wallets. The record industry needs to either listen and adjust how the practice their trade to attract customers back, or they will die. Crap like this article describes will only piss people off and drive them away even more.

My $0.02

Re:Yeah, I've got a game too.

[drsmithy]

60 million people also speed, but only because they can get away with it.

No, it's because they realise that speeding, in and of itself, is not "wrong". It's only when you drive too fast (note: this might actually be under the speed limit) for the conditions, that you are doing something "wrong" - ie: driving dangerously/without due care/recklessly/whatever-you-want-to-call-it.

It's wrong, it's dangerous and it kills people, but you wouldn't speed if you knew that you would get caught every time.

This statement raises an excellent point (no, it's not the first part, which is just anti-speed rhetoric). The only way the "establishment" can actually hope to enforce unreasonable laws is by making detection a certainty and/or making the punishment vastly disproportionate to the "crime" and thus overpower any possible "benefit" that might reduce the "cost". Otherwise people continue to do what their little inbuilt morals and ethics meters tell them aren't "wrong" (which is how morals and ethics get defined in the first place).

Incidentally, it's the same reasoning that explains why the death penalty is not an effective deterrant, but I digress.

So, in the case of speeding we have (at least here in Australia) these wonderful little boxes that get hidden on the side of the road. If they detect you're over the limit, they photograph your number plate. Sometime afterwards the owner of the car is sent a fine in the mail, with zero effective chance of being able to avoid paying it unless he can somehow find someone else to admit to driving. Even if the owner can prove he wasn't driving, he still has to pay the fine if he cannot identify the actual driver at the time of the alleged offence.

Unsurprisingly (at least to anyone with some knowledge in road safety), the effect on the number of casualties on our roads has been zero. Indeed, I believe the number has actually been rising since the devices became widespread. They have, however, raised millions of dollars in revenue and some states actually rely on this revenue to balance their books - and when the books become unbalanced, they just lower the tolerances on the cameras and/or increase the fines. But, again, I digress.

We see the other variation on the philosophy with the RIAA's methods, only instead of the "guaranteed detection" route, they're starting with the "disproportionate punishment" route (although simultaneously trying to make the "guaranteed detection" method feasible by having appropriate laws passed).

Anyway, the underlying moral here is that most people won't break laws they consider to be reasonable and just. Laws that are getting broken by lots of people, are getting broken for a reason.

Gee....

[shachart]

I wonder if they tell the kids the artists are starving since the RIAA gives them $0.00000083 for every CD sold.

Re:Gee....

[Dashing Leech]

Not only that, but typically the artists actually owe money to the record company for the recording, unless they are a huge success. Getting signed to a label is basically getting approved for a high-risk loan, except that you don't get to control the money you borrow, they take their money before it gets to you, and they get to keep the collateral (copyright) even after you do pay them back. It would be a whole lot better for an artist to just get a loan from a bank and pay for the recording and promotion themself. Unfortunately (or fortunately for other customers), they're not likely to get approved for such a large loan (>$100K-$1M) with little or no collateral.

1984?

[SHEENmaster]

The children will also participate in a club called the Spies where they learn to turn in dangerous dissidennt traitors.

Can your child meet the expectations like Suzie Q. did last week when she overheard her parents saying that the RIAA should be ashamed of itself for sueing children and the elderly. She marched right over to the local police station and turned them in.

Can your child be as happysafe as Suzie Q.? You had better send them to the Spies and make sure!

otherwise..

[tommten]

they could submit their music to mp3.com and maybe even make some money instead and see that the market is shifting..

btw. most of the records I bought the last few years I wouldn't have heard of if it wasn't for p2p-software..
but then.. I'm the kind of the consumer the RIAA doesn't want.. one who choses what he wants to listen too.

Advanced study

[gnalre]

Presumably there will an advanced course where students will look at how a artist can market his work in an age when record companies monopolise the retail channels and are interested only in supporting artists conforming to some corporate identity.

not

The smart child

[danlaba]

C = child, T= Teacher

C: Yes, so I'll make the CD, the album art like that, and it will have 12 tracks...
T: It's already available on the net (smiling)
C: Hmmm... let me think... How many downloads? Yes, they seem to like it, hmm... Yeah, good, so now I'm famous. Let's prepare my next concert around the world.
T: !!!

Starving artist? No way! An artist to play for the public, to have tours around the world, yes!

A good artist will never starve because his art is priceless.

P.S. The "Starving Artist" game is stupid, as showed above ;)

Re:After all, isn't it theft

[stephenhawking]

No it isn't theft. Probably copyright infringement under our current draconian and broken copyright laws, but not theft. I for one would prefer my child not to recieve morality lessons in school, especially ones containting brainwashing propaganda like this crap. I send my kid to school for academic advancement, not to be spoonfed some lobbiest's political agenda.

Very true...

[miketang16]

DARE is beyond worthless. I remember getting these lifesaver candies on a necklace that we had to wear all day, and try not to eat. (Supposed to emulate resisting drugs) I ate mine within 5 minutes. And, also if you think about, what they were really teaching us is that drugs are like candy.

How do I get equal time?

[Patrick May]

If the schools are going to subject my children to this propaganda, they had damn well better be prepared to allow alternative views. I suggest something based on the following:

There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or a corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years , the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped ,or turned back, for their private benefit.

Robert Heinlein

Talk about the wrong idea...

[Restil]

How does "coming up with an idea..." to do something have anything to do with copyright? You have to actually produce something first. If this demonstrates anything, it demonstrates the issue of prior art, where they are not permitted to pursue their dream and copyright it because someone else already did.

If you want the kids to really get an idea, they're going to have to spend all their time and effort working on something, tell them that they'll be able to sell it when they're done, and then after months of effort, take away the fruits of their labors and tell them you were just kidding.

Of course, the problem with this is, they'll have to actually create something that someone would be interested in purchasing, and it's unlikely that the average 5-9th grader will be able to pull this off, no matter what it is, and most especially not a product of an intellectual nature. Sure there are the rare exceptions, but this is a project aimed at ALL students, not the TAG crowd.

So at best this will be another boring assignment that the students will only half heartedly pay attention to. And at worst, the few students that have yet to figure out what "that there interweb" thing is all about will suddenly realize that they're missing out on a ton of free music.

This is probably another one of those sugarcoated efforts to make the public cry for the poor starving artists that are being robbed blind by the malicious 12 year olds who download their music, instead of realizing that the record industry is the one robbing them blind.

-Restil

Another game

[OpenSourced]

I have another game, where you plant a tree, wait for it to grow, cut it, and use the wood to painstakingly make a table, using your bare hands and a pocket knife. After all your efforts, you find out that tables better than yours are available everywhere for almost nothing, done by machines.

So you stop making tables. Big deal.

Re:If they're breaking the law....

[Rogerborg]

Ouch, sorry. About 2.2 milliseconds after hitting "Submit", I realised that you were actually asking that question. Sorry for attaching my rant to your post.

For what it's worth, I agree. Intellectual Property law needs to be revisited and some consistency brought to it. Why, for example, is it a criminal offence simply to obtain or supply a tool to break the encryption on a DVD? Why is it not a criminal offence to actually create or even use the tool to make a copy? Why is it a criminal offence to produce and sell shirts with a trademarked Nike logo, but not a criminal offence to sell copied CDs?

The only aspect of the RIAA's position with which I have the slightest sympathy is that they really do have to educate people about this area of the law. However, the fact that they're lying about it (consistently calling copy right infringement "theft") disinclines me to cut them any slack.

But then what attracts these bands?

[goldspider]

"So their profit is $6.6 million; the band may as well be working at a 7-Eleven."

If that were the case, you'd think that the RIAA would have a hard time finding bands willing to sign contracts, and 7-Elevens would be inundated with job applications from band members who didn't make any money.

But of course, there never seems to be a shortage of new bands polluting the airwaves, so I have to conclude that either your facts aren't entirely true, or aren't entirely complete. Afterall, SOMETHING is driving these bands to aspire for a big contract, and it's not poverty.

Re:But then what attracts these bands?

[dasmegabyte]

Well, I think the problem here is that you don't understand music very much.

YOU: "Bands wouldn't sign contracts to produce albums if they didn't make money."

History: Music has been made, for free, for several thousand years. Musicians have lived off of tips and patronidge and "day jobs" forver. Music is not about money. The music INDUSTRY, which feeds your CD shop and your radio, is about money. The two aren't necesarily exclusive, but it seems that way a lot of the time.

If you are in a band, making what you feel is the best music ever played (and all musicians do), and I tell you that I will give you money and you'll get fame and airplay, and you can quit your day job because of the advance, wouldn't you do it?

Musicians are interested in music, not money. They see the advance check and don't do the math. $100,000 to make music? Better than mopping up at the A&P, so they take it. This makes sense...would cautious, sensible economic planners be humping electric guitars on stage 5 nights a week until 2 am and doing crazy drugs when they have to work at 9 am the next morning? Hell no.

Still, with a big label contract, there's always the chance you'll be the next big thing. And then they make SCADS of cash. This is why so many acts sound alike...even if your sound is fresh and original, your producer reminds you you'll have a better chance of getting BIG if you sound more "commercial." End result is, you trade a little creativity for the possibility of never having to work again, ostensibly so you can regain your creativity after you're comfortably rich. You sell out. The result is the bands you hear "polluting" the airwaves. Yes, they are in it for the cash grab. But it's a big lottery and like all gambling, the chances are much better that you'll fail miserably.

People play music because they want to appeal to others with their music. They take contracts because they are told they will make doing just that. In the process, the goal of making money can often obscure the goal of being heard, and even if it doesn't, chance is not on your side. Chances are, with a big label contract, you will make very little money in the long run, and you'll probably squander it anyway.

Nowadays a lot of artists, especially ones who want to play their own thing and not appeal to the masses with generic sound, are opting not to get the big advances and small print of the big record label. Small labels will press your sound and give you a much larger cut but with no promotion, no advance, no whatever. You have to self promote, appeal to the few remaining independent media outlets, and you have to pack people into your shows. Still, you will never have the exposure of the big boys, so it's very hard to get gold or platinum level sales. But it's much more likely that you'll make enough to live on comfortably.

This should be illegal

[joel8x]

I wonder how much money the record companies spend to have such an influence in schools. Its a well known fact that kids make up the recording industry's largest market, so why is it that this commercial entity has an influence on children's morality and education? What kind of message is this sending?

Why not play the real starving artist game? The kids can sign a contract and never make a dime off of their intellectual property for the rest of their lives while the record company makes a fortune but still claims they haven't recouped their costs!

too far

[Anonymous Custard]

Well my version of the game is that you practice guitar since when you were 13 years old, finally get a good band together, do a few local shows for free, eventually get a once-in-a-lifetime deal with a record label, sell a million records, only to find that you still owe the record company $50,000 because they spent so much 'promoting' you, and that you can't make any more music until the record company agrees they like it. Then the record company decides to stop promoting you, and you have to do infomercials and mall openings since you're no longer allowed to make music without the record company's consent. Now that's a fun game.

What to Do about this

[serutan]

For those who didn't read the article, the Starving Artist game is only a little blurb in the middle. But if that's your hot button and you have kids in school, find out if the school plans to bring in this presentation. Talk directly to the teacher(s) involved. The school also has a PTA or PTSA where you can stand up and object publicly.

Be prepared that teachers in general tend to be unsympathetic toward behavior that seems to break rules. However, they also tend to frown on deceit and deception. Your best argument is the truth about how the music business works. Try this explanation:

Musicians don't make money from record companies selling CDs, they make money by performing. Recording contracts are deliberately written so that all the expenses for producing, advertising and distributing an album are taken out of the musician's share of the profits, which then magically turns out to be ZERO. What musicians get out of CD sales is exposure, which makes them more famous and gets them better paying performance gigs. They get this same exposure whether a person buys a CD, borrows it from a friend, listens to it on the radio or downloads it from the Internet. The record industry's "poor starving artist" mantra is a flat out lie.

Whatever you do, don't beat this into the ground or launch into a tirade about the Evils of Capitalism or whatever. Just tell the real story matter-of-factly and give them a chance to digest it. Tell them you don't want the Recording Industry or any other industry bringing in a marketing campaign disguised as a learning experience.

law or $$ important?

[edstromp]

What teacher would allow this as a part of his/her curriculum? Good grief. Here you go kids--create, have fun, but just so you know, it's the money that makes it worthwhile, not the satisfaction and joy that comes with the act of creation and knowing a job well done. What a crappy lesson to be giving our kids. That's as bad as suing 12 year olds, actually worse, because their propaganda is teaching children corrupt and false moral truths. As a parent I'd be pissed as hell to find out the schools were allowing my children to be taught these things. How about teaching them the importance of obeying the law because it IS the law, and if the law is wrong, it can be changed, but that the law is important and the law should be followed?

Ethics in Schools ???

[IamGarageGuy 2]

I hope I am not the only one that is violently opposed to public schools trying to teach our children about ethics. First of all I don't aggree with a government organization trying to teach children ethics (whatever happened to parents?) and secondly the teaching of ethics by a heavy handed corporation. This is wrong in so many ways that I have to question the ethics of the school boards that allow such a curriculum in the first place.