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.

[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.

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.

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

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.