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MPAA School Propaganda Program Examined

Posted by michael on from the starving-artist-the-musical dept.

Anonymous Coward copies-and-pastes: "'As part of its campaign to thwart online music and movie piracy, Hollywood is now reaching into school classrooms with a program that denounces file-sharing and offers prizes for students and teachers who spread the word about Internet theft. The Motion Picture Association of America paid $100,000 to deliver its anti-piracy message to 900,000 students nationwide in grades 5-9 over the next two years, according to Junior Achievement Inc., which is implementing the program using volunteer teachers from the business sector." Only $100,000 to advertise to 900,000 students? What a deal! We mentioned this earlier.

24 of 433 comments (clear)

  1. Only a step from by Kierthos · · Score: 5, Interesting

    offering money to kids who turn other kids in...

    "Rat on your friends, redeem valuable prizes!"

    Kierthos

    --
    Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
    1. Re:Only a step from by LittleGuy · · Score: 4, Funny

      offering money to kids who turn other kids in...

      "Rat on your friends, redeem valuable prizes!"

      I'm saving my boxtops for the Elia Kazan Commemorative Lifetime Achievement Action Figure, With Kung-Fu Grip.

      --
      Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
    2. Re:Only a step from by EinarH · · Score: 4, Insightful
      And they want to scare of the parents as well. A part of the program is a take home and fill-out-together letter to the parents.

      I wrote a long comment about this and the program last time this was mentioned.
      There are some links to the pdf files in the program there.

      The Starving Artist is a discussion based game where students are divided in group and shall produce a CD but then they are ripped off by "file swapping". "how does this makes you feel?"


      Share the following statements with the students to summarize the lesson with the class. These statements help summarize the lesson and connect the concepts to the students personally.
      - To legally own it, legally buy it.
      - If you haven't paid for it, you've stolen it.
      - Copying a movie or CD for a friend is illegal.
      - If you wouldn't take a movie or CD from the shelves of a store without paying for it, then why do it online?

      I must say that $100,000 is dirt cheap for a program like this.

      --

      Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.

    3. Re:Only a step from by mike77 · · Score: 4, Interesting
      And they want to scare of the parents as well. A part of the program is a take home and fill-out-together letter to the parents.

      I personally am not a parent, but if I were, I believe I would be pulling my child out of these classes. When did schools become a lobbying forum for corporations? Was it when Coke and Pepsi started battling over who gets the lucrative lunchroom contract? (gotta get the kids hooked early and turn them into "consumers", it's their patriotic american duty) I doubt it will happen, because most people are sheep, but I would really like to see some outrage by the parents. What gives the *AA's the moral ground to stand on and come into the schools, and tell our nations children what is right and wrong. Last time I looked they represented money driven/hungry companies, and I cannot even think of a company anymore to which I can point and say, look, now there's a stand up company who's always done the right thing, and I'm proud to support them.

      Parnets, make some noise, and don't sit by while your children are being "educated" by the united corporations of America.

      --

      --Keeping the flame wars alive, one post at a time

    4. Re:Only a step from by brianosaurus · · Score: 5, Funny

      They "forgot" to do the other part of that RPG:

      Have the students divide into groups and produce CDs. Same game so far. But now have them try to get a deal with the RIAA. Have them find out that they don't get squat for all their hard earned work. Maybe they're CD will make it to a few shelves, but they won't see a cent, since all of the RIAA promotional budget goes to "sure things" like Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake's R&B career, and Metallica.

      Then tell them that they can't distribute their music online since the RIAA now owns the copyrights to their songs. So they can't get any exposure. Next, tell them that their sales didn't recoup the advance they got from the studios to record the album, so they actually owe money back.

      Then ask them how they feel about it.

      --
      blog
  2. Just like DARE by AlgoRhythm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And we all know how much THAT works.

    At least taxpayers aren't paying for it.

  3. Bad idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Anytime you tell a kid that something's bad, their first instinct is to go investigate it. After listening to the **AA's lectures, they'll immediately go home and log on the net to see what this "Kazaa" thing is.

  4. remember by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    remember when Ronald Reagon first started that war on drugs that even rewarded children for snitching on their parents...

    even if you had a little pot in the home it was like you were an axe murderer...

    now children, if your mommy and daddy have kazaa on their computer you be sure to tell us so we can sue the hell out of them and\or put them behind bars where they belong...

  5. overly simplistic by toasted_calamari · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From the article:
    "If you haven't paid for it, you've stolen it."

    I honestly hope that this program has a more complex take on IP than this. I can easily think of many, many things on line that can be obtained for free, legally. (the entire contents of sourceforge comes to mind.) IP law is phenomenally complicated and cannot be boiled down to simple slogans and sound bytes.

    --
    Let's make a difference
    1. Re:overly simplistic by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The suits who run the studios are so disconnected* from the techies in the render farms that such issues never enter their brains.** And to big-corp-think, of course, free software -- free anything -- is an abomination and unclean anyway. Understanding this, IMO, is key to understanding everything from the [MP|RI]AA's reaction to piracy, to Microsoft's reaction to Linux. In their perfect world, you pay for everything; more specifically, you pay them for everything. The idea that anyone might be able to get useful stuff for free wakes them up in screaming nightmares. This is not rational cost-benefit analysis. This is a clash of worldviews as fundamental as Galileo's with the Church.

      --

      * I'm not claiming any special insider knowledge of how Hollywood studios work. This is my guess based on my experience of how big corporations work in general.

      ** If they have brains. Or hearts. Or courage. All of which are highly debatable.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
  6. start while they are young by Zanek · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This reminds me of one of my favorite books, 'A Brave New World'.
    Program the kids while they are young and by the time they are adolescents they may think copying music (not stealing :-)
    is as bad as physically stealing from a store. I wonder if someday some kid will be
    like "Copying music is worst than stealing cars"

    --


    Help pay for my wedding! Go to my kickass website
  7. Excellent business plan. by watzinaneihm · · Score: 5, Funny

    I am going to stop my email-marketing business and going to pay a million to the government to let me teach students why a large penis is important in their life.And if they dont want that, ill teach them how to meet naked teens desperate to talk to them. And if they want alternatives, ill teach 'em how to put a wireless camera to good use.
    If RIAA plan is legit, so is mine.

    --
    .ACMD setaloiv siht gnidaeR
    1. Re:Excellent business plan. by dr_dank · · Score: 4, Funny

      I am going to stop my email-marketing business and going to pay a million to the government to let me teach students why a large penis is important in their life.

      R. Kelly, is that you?

      --
      Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
  8. You're forgetting... by StringBlade · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They already know more about Kazaa, filesharing, and the Internet than most adults.

    --
    ...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
  9. Salem File Sharing Trials by bcolflesh · · Score: 4, Funny

    My name is Goody Walters and I accuse little Billy Smith of file sharing! Burn him!

  10. er its a school not a billboard by pacman+on+prozac · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why should any business or company be allowed to advertise in school, regardless of what their message is.

    Besides what are they teaching the kids, that it doesn't matter if you make a load of worthless crap aslong as you have lawyers to back you up? yea great.

  11. Brainwashing ? by MoonFog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Andrew Irgens-Moller, 14, buried his head into a backpack on his desk and rolled his eyes as the guest teacher warned of computer viruses and hackers that could take control of a user's desktop via file-sharing programs. He objected that antivirus software could scan downloaded files and only sophisticated hackers could pull off the remote desktop computer takeover.
    Then the teacher cut him off.

    These are brainwashing tactics... It is downright scary that these "guest teachers" are even allowed to spread such FUD. If they want to move young kids away from filesharing, try at least to feed them with false information.
    "Your computer can be taken over at the minute you install Kazaa"

    1. Re:Brainwashing ? by Kircle · · Score: 4, Interesting
      More telling I think is the quote that followed:
      Bret Balonick, a tax accountant on loan from PricewaterhouseCoopers to teach the anti-piracy class, was arguing that some downloaders have been affected by malicious activity. Besides, he said, it's illegal to upload and download unauthorized content online.

      "If it's illegal in America, host it in Uzbekistan," snapped the 14-year-old.
      The quote you mentioned does make it look like brainwashing, but the quote I mentioned here makes the kid look bad. Almost like saying, "move your money to a swiss bank account."
      --

      -- Kircle

  12. most insigtful comment in the article by rokka · · Score: 5, Funny

    "If it's illegal in America, host it in Uzbekistan," snapped the 14-year-old.

    --
    I could be wrong. I'm always wrong...
  13. Contrast this by cubicledrone · · Score: 4, Insightful

    With the average volunteer who might want to help kids in the local school districts learn to read or to operate a computer. Schools would require such a person to navigate a bureaucratic maze for weeks.

    But for $100,000, they'll gladly put the taxpayer-funded curriculum on hold for the day and allow a live advertisement for the latest feature film to kids who can't read or construct a complete sentence. Incredible.

    --
    Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
  14. Interesting! New rights for us! by Eric_Cartman_South_P · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Quoted from the article...

    "If you haven't paid for it, you've stolen it."

    Conversely, that means if I paid for it, I OWN it. Not a license of it, not some right to it, but OWN it. Now I can copy, broadcast, whatever. If the RIAA is going to boil things down, so will I. Time to give all those mp3's I OWN to my friends.

  15. One good thing about it... by Dave21212 · · Score: 4, Insightful


    If they passed out pamphlets to the students, at least they won't be able to read them.

    "Why Can't Johnny Read ?"
    --- Because the teachers spend more time trying to brainwash and subdue the little brats than actually teaching them perhaps ?

    Lovely...
    Do any lawyers think there might be a case for equal time/access ? Send Linus or RMS around to teach kids for a while...

    --
    "Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
  16. Uh huh.... by MoeMoe · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "The Motion Picture Association of America paid $100,000 to deliver its anti-piracy message to 900,000 students nationwide in grades 5-9 over the next two years"

    And this is going to make an impact... how? Most kids at that age are smart enough to know when they are being jacked, even if they didn't, they would only be under the spell until the "prizes" ran out. If the MPAA went to 1st graders, prizes would probably reel them in without question. The problem with that is 1st graders, assuming they are computer literate, do not go downloading massive quantities of MP3s or DivX encoded movies.

    <paranoid_rant>
    Now if you ask me, the real goal for the MPAA in doing this is to trick the children into admitting they have downloaded a movie or two before and then threaten to sue their parents for everything they've got... To avoid litigation, the parents can agree to have the child stop using the computer altogether, and give him a calculator to play with instead.
    </paranoid_rant>

    --
    Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
    A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
  17. This Is Worse Than You Think by SirChive · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is really bad. Not so much because the MPAA is going to schools to deliver it's particular propaganda. But because ANY group from private industry can buy access to school kids.

    What's next? Representatives from the Brokerage industry going to grade schools to preach the virtues of buying stock? Fast food evangelists marching freely through classrooms brainwashing kids to eat only Happy Meals.

    The MPAA is evil. But no more evil than any other industry group that will push it's own profits at the expense of all else. We are truely losing our integrity as a society if we let any of them into our schools.