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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."
I remember when I was in the early grades of school and TV networks went berserk over teachers using VCRs to tape shows and play them in class. I thought at the time that it was the stupidest thing I had ever heard of, and I am sure that will be the reaction of the kids today in this analagous situation.
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
Lets see how many different business models the students create that the RIAA could use. I wonder how long it will take for a student to say that he's going to make money by actually PERFORMING the music in a public venue?
The best way to get a young kid to do anything is to tell them they are not alowed to do it. How many smoke because they are told it is bad ? As soon as they find out it is bad they want ot know why so they try it. I think this will make the problem worse.
check out that crossword on the right. What does "3. Take music off the computer" correspond to -- "Digital theft" or "Download" or "Piracy"? And "14. Online Stealing"? Is that "Piracy" too? Arr, matey!
Good lord. "4. Software that traces a person's usage" must be "Spyware" -- are they teaching that Kazaa is evil (must not sleep, clowns will eat me), too?
Not a curriculum for me, thankyouverymuch. Unless it's in a lesson about corporate control of American schools, and they buy all the kids free Pepsis out of the vending machines with which the school has an exclusive contract.
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
I love it where is says:
"There is no issue in my life I take as seriously as this," said Peter Chernin, president and chief operating officer of the News Corporation, which owns 20th Century Fox. "This is going to be with us for the rest of our careers. But if we remain focused on it, maybe it won't kill us and we won't have to panic."
Clearly they have already panicked, and frankly, I hope it does kill them. Extinction isn't so bad for an industry who has gouged the public for so long. Also, lets not forget that the artists get very little money as it is, because they grab most of it..
But there is a growing contingent who fear the threat is closer than some in Hollywood want to admit. Already industry analysts suggest there could be as many as 500,000 copies of movies swapped daily.
Could be.. maybe so, maybe not.. What should we do? Panic, I guess..
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
As a kid, I had no idea what my options for drugs were until a DARE officer showed up in my classroom with the parphenalia display, the scratch-n-sniff pot smelling paper, and the videos of glassy-eyed hippies all whacked out on weed and goofballs.
Needless to say, I'm pretty sure that many, if not most of the kids they try and "teach" this way will just go right out and get the free music they didn't know they were missing. Brilliant.
-- lk t lv ll th vwls t f wrds. T svs lts f tm t wrt bt ts pn n th ss t rd nd mks m lk lk cmplt dpsht.
After suing a 12 yr old, knowing that they did it, and STILL they settled for $2k US? I think they should play a game called "Greedy Lawyer". Here the kids go up infront of the class, make a band, songs, album art, etc... then the RIAA says "Hey thanks for that, you get 1 cent an album we sell!".
Is this even legal? They are not a public entity like the Fire Dept or Police Dept that can come in and give lecutures on safety and saying no to strangers. They are a privatly owned firm of lawyers that will brainwash our kids to think their way. I really don't want my kids comming subjected to that. Yes, I could keep my child out of school that day but then they would lose any other classes that they would have that day also.
Is this what the education system is comming to these days now? Coperate sponsed education? It's bad enough that M$ is pushed in all the schools (nice that they get free computers though) now we're going to have the RIAA pushing their ethics? What's next? No, seriously, this is frightning to me. My two childern are just entering the school system now and with things like this croping up what will they be learning?
Rights are not inherent; the only rights which exist are those which a society chooses to protect. Perhaps now is the time to say that certain kinds of intellectual property should not be protectable.
So what, if file sharing does lead to the end of the recorded music industry (though I suspect the most it would ever do is shrink it). Haven't you ever looked at that stack of CDs on your shelf and thought "How much _stuff_ do I actually need?".
We actually need _more_ music on CD, do we? So the back catalogue isn't big enough? If enough of the back catalogue was out there on MP3 you could listen to a different song for the rest of your life.
Perhaps wannabes who want to be the next Elton John will have to content themselves, if they care about music enough, with playing for small money in local clubs or bars. So what? How many people does the recorded music industry employ: probably not that many.
Perhaps the complaints of musicians/record companies belong with those of typists, technical draughtsmen, weavers, bank tellers and every other profession that ever suffered because of progress.
Change is inevitable; its up to citizens to make sure that it is they, and not large corporations, that choose how it changes. I don't believe that, in this instance, there should be a right to manipulate the law to make profit, and protect profit.
2a) Their song will get no airplay, so the label will have to send over part of their royalty to get it on the airwaves.
4a) The label will send them on a money-losing tour which the artist(s) will have to fork out $20,000 a piece just to keep the label from dropping them.
Well isnt it nice to know that education isnt revolving around history, math, literature, science and technology, etc.. Its about how to become a comsumer for the bigger companies. And some people wonder how the american education system seems to falling apart. I think this answers it.
The answer is obvious. It's all about money. There is far more money to be made in a civil proceeding. The fact that the RIAA pursues the matter this way clearly indicates their real motive. It's not just about stopping piracy. It's about seeing what kind of income they can make while stopping the piracy.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
"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 they will only get $1 for every album sold and then still be $1,000,000 in debt to the record company. Then teachers will tell them that they'll be spending the next 3 years like slaves performing 6 nights a week, unable to see their family or friends because they're travelling the country, living with 8 other people in a van with a $10 per diem, and showers once a week. Then the teachers will tell them to keep their fingers crossed because they have a solid 1 in 100,000 chance of hearing their album on MTV.."
How bout this game, call it rockband.
95% of the kids are told to form bands.
the remaining 5 % are broken up into record execs, AR men and lawyers
The kids in the bands all have to try to get the attention of the AR men, when they do the AR men have to get them to sign a letter of intent.
Once the bands have signed a letter of intent they can then negotiate with the record companies. After going into debt to both the record companies and their lawyers they can then record their album.
Then you can have the fun part. The royalty statement where, the bands can find that even though they have sold 32 million dollars worth of CD's they still haven't made a profit. Matter of fact they are in debt to the record company. And, Their effective earning power would have been better if they were at 7-11
Now you can tell the kids in the band that their fans are downloading their songs.
This is the kind of game I wouldn't mind seeing in schools. You could follow it up with other fun legal games like, Make the laws benefit you, Patent Grab, and sue your competition out of business.
P2P filesharing is a demonstration of classic american values. Whenever in this country a small group has managed to buy laws that are significantly out of line with reality the bulk of the country just ignores them.
Haven't we had enough of morally deviant predators grooming little kids to turn them into compliant bitches?
Now, I'm all for teaching kids (and adults) about the consequences of their actions, but the action that the RIAA are objecting to isn't file copying, it's not buying music. There's a distinction, and I want them to be honest about what they're saying.
What these kids are really being told is: "If you don't do buy Freshy Q's new CD, the police will take your mommy away. Sorry, I mean, Freshy Q is going to die in the gutter."
Now, sure, Freshy is dead meat if you don't buy because you're downloading his m3p, but the thing is, he's just as destitute if you don't buy because you're happy listening to him on the radio, or by streamed webcast, or on MTV-a-like channels, or (shocker) if despite - or perhaps because of - the many ways that the RIAA pays to get the music to you, you simply choose not to buy a CD.
That's the message that the RIAA is giving, once you strip the bullshit away. Buy more music. Buy music, or you've killed Freshy Q. It's not our job to persuade you to pay, it doesn't matter how generic or plastic our miming meat puppets are, the fact is, Billy, it's your responsibility to pay, and frankly, you should pay whether you like the music or not. It's all about stopping poor Freshy Q from starving.
Spooky prediction? Next year, it's Driver's Ed, but first a short message from our sponsors, the Ford Motor Company Inc.
"Hello class. I'd like to tell you the story of Wally Doe. We had to lay Wally off because you selfish little bastards are walking to school instead of pestering your parents to buy you a Ford Weener. Now Wally has to give handjobs for food. Say, kids, how would you feel about choking the chicken of a 400lb trucker to make ends meet?"
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
The answer is obvious.
You're right, it is.
It's all about money.
Uh... what!?!?
The "obvious" answer as to why they pursue these cases civilly instead of criminally is because no crime has been committed. Copyright infringement is not a criminal offense - it's a civil one.
Your answer would sell more papers though. Congrats for that. You might want to take off the tinfoil hat for the photo though.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
So, any special interest group gets to push their morals and agendas on our kids? In their classrooms? It's one thing to transmit their propaganda over the TV and radio, but its another to hold the kids captive and force them to listen/participate in such a way.
Hopefully, parents will be given the option of opting their children out of such activities. If not, let's hope one of these kids has lawyers for parents.
What next? The Right-To-Lifers get to stage a school "assignment" that's really just preaching the evils of abortion? The Brady Bill nuts get to do the same preaching the evils of firearms? Where does it stop?
Hey - why stop there? Let's get Coca-Cola to come in and "teach" how their product is superior to Pepsi. And let's get Dunlop to come in and teach how their tires are superior to Michelins.
This is just stupid.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
>If that were the case, you'd think that the RIAA would have a hard time finding bands willing to sign contracts
Only if wildly optimistic kids:
Personally, I blame a system that tells kids that they can all be exceptional. It's very motivating and all, but the problem is that so many of them seem to actually believe it.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I seriously doubt that there will be no record. I got yelled at by a cop when I was 10 years old for setting off fireworks in my backyard. 8 years later while I'm trying to join the military, I get the third degree because I didn't list the "incident" back in '85,
I was 10 years old for cripes sake!!!
I've dirtied my hands writing poetry, for the sake of seduction; that is, for the sake of a useful cause. --Dostoevsky
The quote is from Heinlein's first published story, "Lifeline." A scientist invents a machine which will allow him to determine the exact moment a person will die (by extrapolating the length of the four-dimensional "worm" their life forms in space-time), and the life insurance companies take him to court, arguing that this device will put them out of business.
Sono koro, bokura wa, sore ga sekai no shinjitsu da to shinjite ita.
> Given the amounts the artists have to pay out of their advance on basic expenses, there'd be a hell of a lot of bankrupt artists around if most of them had to pay their advances back! It doesn't work like that, few if any artists would even sign up if it did.
Um, there are a hell of a lot of bankrupt artists out there, and they do have to pay the advance back. See, the contract is written to work royalty recoup before expenses. In the example, the band gets fronted $1M for the record, and they hit the studio. Expenses end up on top of that (say $200K). Now, when the record starts to sell, the record company pays the band 20 percent of the proceeds, but then takes it back to recoup the original $1M. If the record grosses $5M, they recoup the entirety of the advance. Now why that doesn't count as having to pay it back is only academic. It's true that the band doesn't have to pay it back if royalties don't cover the advance, but they still have to pay it back before they make any money.
Oh, and did you forget the $200K in additional expenses? If the record makes $4M, not a dime of the $200K is paid off, and that money is indeed recoverable, which means that the record company makes $2.8M (that's the $4M in sales minus the $1M advance minus the $200K) and can sue the band for the $200K expenses (but not the leftover $200K in unrecouped advance), which forces the band to declare bankruptcy and break up, never to perform under the now-defunct name again. Since they got advanced $200K that they never repaid, assuming five members in the band, they each made $40K for one year, and had to drop the band at the end of that one year. The national average for a manager at a convenience store in the U.S. is $38K a year, and you get to keep the job from year to year, and you get a benefits package.
Not pretty, is it?
Virg
So who consumes a larger chunk of the total revenue from a record -- the filesharers or the RIAA members?
And the "marketing is expensive" line that publishers use is amazing. Yes, that's what you do, RIAA folks -- market records. You're expensive. Nobody is arguing with you there.
May we never see th
That sounds good, but it's never been the case. Athletics, shop classes, etc., have been a part of the education scene for as long as anyone alive can remember. They serve purposes other than pure academic advancement but someone, somewhere a long time ago decided that those purposes were sufficiently valid that time should be taken off of pure academics to engage in those activities.
The question is: What non-academic stuff is so important that we can all (pretty much) agree on the positive utility of taking time out of the school day to focus on it? Where I came from, football is so important that it ran roughshod over everything else. I didn't agree, but I was definitely in the minority with that opinion.
For many people today, discussion of HIV/AIDS is so important that it should happen in school. It's not purely academic and it certainly is also about socialization and life skills, but most people are willing to accept that some HIV/AIDS education during the school day isn't a bad thing. So now we come to political agendas and my real point. Once you get beyond math, everything is tainted by a political agenda. You can't avoid it. Do you object, on the grounds that it is spoonfeeding some lobbiest's political agenda, to the teaching of HIV/AIDS-related information? Even if it's by a "gay activist?" What about gun safety? Is that important enough to spend some time on? Even if the only really effective and accurate program on the subject is the "Eddie Eagle" program from the National Rifle Association? Have you fully reviewed the genesis of the history books used in your local school? The amount of political jockeying that ultimately decides what does and doesn't go into school books is flat out insane.
My point is that everything is political. Condemning the RIAA from wanting to get into the schools on the grounds that they are political is pointless. The schools are already shot through with political agendas.
Far better, I think, to simply object on the grounds that this thing isn't important enough to waste your kid's limited time on.
"Also, they mention the 'Publishers Cut' on there, but forget to note that the label is usually the publisher (most will work very hard to keep the rights to any songs you write, they will also work hard to keep you from releasing covers of songs they didn't write"
Actually, if you look at most albums, you will see a publishing company next to the name of the song title...generally its some wierd name you've never heard of but always associated with that person.
For instance, as I strugle to think of one, I believe Nine Inch Nail's always uses the moniker of Leaving Hope Music as their publisher...its Reznor's personal publishing company. What do ya have to do to have a publishing company? Register it with Harry Fox or ASCAP or one of the others. I think its like $100 and they will collect the publishing fees for a small percentage. Hell, if you didn't have a publisher before and your songs were released, they will even look in places that collect these things and retrieve them for you...a friend did some work on an Anime series in the late 80s to get him through a dry spell. Payed up front BUT they released the music from the album after the series got popular. When he got his new record deal, he ended up starting up another publishing company and they went out and looked for uncollected royalties and found about $10k for him from the Asian Market from 10 years ago for stuff he'd completely forgotten about.
As I mentioned in another post, there is a reason most artists at least go for Co-Writting credit. Everyone knows Avril Lavine didn't write most of the songs off her last album, but anthing with her name on it is considered 50% her music (and the rest to 'The Matix' group) because she changed a word or a chord here or there...she was around this stuff before (I think her uncle was a MI attny or something) and wasn't stupid about this knowing that publishing is where the big bucks comes from a lot of times.
The publication royalties are VERY important and any musician that doesn't know this is an idiot. Any decent management would let the artist know this BEFORE they go into the studio...after all, the management generally gets 10% of the artists take (paid by the artist) and would be silly to let half the potential cash go unclaimed.
But you are right...in Country and Western and pop, its not uncommon for the artists to never write their own songs...if they were smart, they'd do like Elvis and Sinatra did and demand 50% cuts for putting the song on the album in the first place -- even if the song was written 10 years ago and sat in a catalogue unused. But then we'd have to complain about artists abusing their power the same way labels did...
If that were the case, they wouldn't be signing multi-million dollar contracts with the RIAA. The fact that they do suggests their motivation is financial in nature.
"...that everyone always points to as to why you don't need to have a massive money making recording industry in order to get good music."
I agree with you there, but the fact remains that musicians are still flocking to the industry, and therefore the industry thrives.
I submit that the key to breaking the RIAA's stranglehold on music is educating prospective bands on the dangers of signing with a big label, and the benefits of the alternatives (small labels, independent/online distribution).
File-sharing is only going to piss off both the RIAA and the musicians Slashdotters claim to be working in the best interest of.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
The kids will learn 2 things from this exercise
1. If everyone just downloads music for free from the Intarweb, well...that sucks for the artists, because they get no monetary compensation from it.
2. The current business model being blasted into our brains by the music industry sucks, because they take too much of the money. We pay too high prices and the artists still get little or no money from it.
Some of these little darlings will grow up to become businessmen and women. A few of them even good businessmen and women.
Maybe one of them will come up with a system that actually does work.
$Deity, I hope it doesn't take that long!
The only similarity between physical property and intellectual property is that the ownership thereof has been artificially created in both cases.
The primary difference between intellectual property and physical property is that while "stealing" one may dilute its value, it does not deprive anyone of anything they would have gotten had you not done so, whereas acquiring the other without permission means you are depriving someone of something, and actively costing them money. The legal system can tell the difference, though in this day and age it doesn't seem like it -- can you?
Put simply (in deference to you, Kent) when you stock a store shelf you expend money to do so, and if someone steals your stock, not only is that money gone, but you have been deprived of assets, namely the physical object. If someone puts your CD into their PC, and makes an mp3 rip, or downloads a rip from the internet, you lose nothing except a sale -- assuming that they would have purchased it anyway.
If someone steals stock from your store, you gain nothing. If someone copies your album, you gain exposure.
Hence, copying music to which you are not entitled is illegal, but not necessarily immoral or unethical. That may be your opinion but I don't think it's exactly been proven. What has been proven time and time again is that major label artists, who are overwhelmingly the group most concerned (or at least, the label is concerned on "their" behalf) about music "piracy" (I don't remember firing any cannons at anyone. ARR! PREPARE TO BE BOARDED!) make more money when you go see them in concert than when you buy their album. So, if you want to support the bands you love, while getting something for your trouble, go see their shows as many times as you can, and spread their music to people who have not been exposed to it who like to go see bands live.
I am sure you will write this off as just another justification but the fact is that your basic premise is flawed because taking physical property, which is called stealing, and copying intellectual property, which is a violation of copyright law but is not theft specifically because it does not deprive anyone of anything are not the same thing. That is a fact whether you approach the problem legally, logically, morally, or ethically. Whether copyright violations are wrong is a matter of opinion. Clearly there are many people opposed to the existence of copyright at all, and I don't know if they are necessarily "right" or "wrong". Traditionally, what is "right" is what has been agreed upon by a society, and it varies between groups of people.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The movie/record industry have always been an indirect influence on the classroom, whether they want to admit it or not:
We have a new generation of parents with no idea of how to raise kids, they forget that growing children are impressionable. Out of habit, they plop their kids in front of the TV or the radio as a babysitter, a distraction.
TV and radio has more foul language, violence, sex, and immoral behavior than ever before. The mass media encourages children to be rebellious to authority. These kids with impressionable minds mimic their TV characters and rebel against their parents. When they see how well that works, they progress to rebel against their friends, against their society, against their teachers, their principals, their law officers, their judges, their politicians, on and on. Unchecked, this behavior is cast in stone into their adult lives.
Think this is ridiculous? The effect of TV is manifested in the Jerry Springer shows. There was a grade school class where the teacher began changing the channel when the Springer show came on. In protest the kids in the class threw chairs at the teacher, mimicing the Springer show.
Another one: Beavis and Butthead episode where one of the characters plays with fire and chants "fire is good, fire is good." Shortly after it aired, a five year old boy set fire to his trailer home killing his little sister. He admitted that he was influenced into the act after viewing the Beavis and Butthead episode. It was never aired again. That is a blatant admission that the media knows the devastating influence they have on culture.
Right here on /. there was a story of a high school counselor who reprimanded a student. In retaliation, the student made false accusations of sexual assault. Despite the repentance of the student when she admitted to authorities that she made the whole thing up, the counselor lost his job and his career. One guess where you think the student saw that immoral behavior...
Movies and TV shows glorify indiscriminate sex and trashy fashion. More and more teenagers are having sex before they graduate high school. The likes of Madonna and Britney Spears have influenced teenage girls to dress provocatively. They're not shy about wearing low rise jeans with the tops of their thongs showing. The jerks that the media is pushing as "male role models" are influencing an entire generation of men, who inherited all the wrong ideas of a healthy relationship and family values.
The result? Unwanted pregancies, widespread transmission of uncurable STDs, broken families, and a whole generation growing up with corrupted ideas of indiscriminate sex with zero accountability for their actions. These are the consequences that movies, TV shows, and records NEVER EVEN BROADCAST.
And now these hypocrites want to broadcast their view of ethics in the classroom. Riiiiiiight...
Take a good look at the late Katherine Hepburn, who has been called a "role model". She married once, and divorced in 1934 as her movie career was taking off. She was quoted "I don't believe in marriage. It is bloody impractical to love, honor, and obey." In short, she rebelled. She then had affairs with many Hollywood men, including Howard Hughes. She then had a long extramarital affair with Tracy Spencer, a married man who refused to divorce his wife. Hepburn rejected everything about marriage and embraced fornication, adultery, and indiscriminate sex. All starting in the 1930s. And todays' women look up to this person with reverance and admiration?!? If you want to find out why today's family culture is so fucked up, look no further than this "role model".
And Hollywood perpetuated this woman, because this crap made them money.
Mae West wasn't shy about her rebellion either. She admitted losing her virginity at the age of seven and her brashness permeated through al
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
Write songs, record songs, make cover art, take advantage of free internet marketing. The problem is that the teachers who are implimenting this anti-filesharing indoctrination are either uneducated about the real issues of the problem (as you seem to be), or they are simply against free marketing. It costs absolutely nothing to put your songs up on p2p, and, if you're lucky, your music gets more grassroots credibility because you actually worked to market yourself rather than going through the labels' money machine. As an independant musician, I honestly can't see what the big deal is. My band has gained more money/fans from giving out free music (both online and off) than we ever would have gotten by charging for each and every copy. I don't wish for the labels to take away my distribution channel just because they don't know how to properly capitolize on it.
Let me put it in Slashdot standard format for you:
Me:
1.Make music
2.Use free marketing channel
3.Gain fans
4.charge fans for other merch, like t-shirts, concert tickets, and CDs for the ones that want legit copies and album art.
5.Profit!
Labels:
1.Buy music
2.Pay for marketing
3.Gain fans
4.Sue fans
5.Go bankrupt!
Now, which one makes more sense?
Bottom line: The labels are paying radio stations to allow people to listen to their music for free. Why don't the labels use p2p to do the same thing, and avoid having to pay radio stations? Your guess is as good as mine.
If the exclusive rights in a copyright are analogous to the exclusive rights in a chunk of real estate in so many other ways, why isn't copyright treated like real estate for tax purposes?
Will I retire or break 10K?
As for public schools, they've been dumbing down American kids for a long time now. Charlotte Iserbyt's excellent book explains all --
The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America
If you read nothing else, read Charlotte's article, No American Left Alone. It's an eye opener --
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.
Well why did you make the table in the first place? To make money, or to have a handmade table that you're proud of, and that you enjoy?
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