Kids Game Takes Aim At Music Pirates

Thanks to the San Jose Mercury News for reprinting a report about an educational videogame company who've decided to theme their next title around music piracy. According to the piece, the developers, MGI, who are not being funded by the RIAA or any other music industry groups, "...had set out to create a game about the yo-ho-ho kind of pirates. But when [MGI] started researching the topic of piracy, they were overwhelmed with information about music copyrights." An official press release on the MGI site reveals: "Loosely based on the Treasure Island story, this new PC game will... caricature music piracy, embodied especially in the figure of Captain Bootleg." The nefarious Captain Bootleg has run off with the 'Music Treasure', and "...a young boy named Ma, top agent of the Funny Bureau of Investigations ('FBI'), who... carries a laptop, must find the Island and recover the Music Treasure."

Comments

Explain to Kids

[4of12]

How when music is "pirated" that the "music treasure" is copied, there will be two copies of treasure! The first treasure owner can still play the music all they want!

Explain that "copying treasure" is Very Bad.

You can see how this is Very Bad, can't you?

Your inbred human tuition should make you recoil in revulsion from even thinking about giving away anything with a (c).

It is so Evil that I'm sure most of the world's major religions have strict prohibitions against it.

Re:Explain to Kids

[uncoveror]

Comparing unauthorized copying to rape, murder, and robbery on the high seas is terribly sensational. This "game" is a piece of RIAA/MPAA propaganda whether they will admit to it or not. Don't buy CDs.

Re:Explain to Kids

[fuzzybunny]

Well, Alan Greenspan says that copying treasure leads to too much treasure, which results in treasure inflation, which means treasure is worth a lot less, putting all the nice people working in the treasure hoarding industry out of business!

Music is exactly the same. When you keep duplicating it, it no longer has the precious value of a unique piece of art, leading to lack of appreciation for it. And this, kids, is exactly the reason why I want to KICK THE SHIT OUT OF THE NEXT F)_@*$!# DEPARTMENT STORE ELEVATOR PLAYING *!@#!ING BOY BAND CRAP.

So remember kids. Don't duplicate that Britney Spears CD. Instead, lock it up in the cellar, where it'll be safe from the pirates.

Won't somebody think of the pirates?

A better game proposal

[AtariAmarok]

A better game proposal: "NapLeech".

Your character runs around town, smashing into music stores and stealing CD's (a "Grand Theft Music"). If there is any Brittany Spears playing near by, health goes down. but Beatles music improves your health.

Monsters resembling Hilary Rosen and Orren Hatch bedevil you every step. The stolen CD's have to be trucked to a warehouse.

When you are through playing the game, you go look in the MyMusic folder and find it full of the music from the CDs you stole in the game.

Uhhh....

[hookedup]

I installed the game...and...well...i dont seem to have _any_ of my mp3s on my computer anymore, what happened? :)

Prepare to have your buckles swashed

[Decaffeinated Jedi]

So, they're going to associate music piracy with actual "yo-ho-ho-and-a-bottle-of-rum" piracy in this post-Pirates of the Caribbean era, and they expect kids not to think that it's even cooler than they already do? Sounds a bit counter-intuitive to me...