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British Schoolkids Get Copyright Education
Krafty Koder writes "The Register reports that British school children will be indoctrinated in copyright law , in a scheme backed by the music industry, as part of the government sponsored Music Manifesto initiative. In response, kuro5hin have posted an open letter on this issue." The U.S. has its own version.
I think it would be great if someone made a list of such things that we could xerox and pass out to all the students so they can be PROPERLY educated.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Our educational system? Sure copyright is an issue that is controversial, and piracy is a problem, however I don't think that it is a good idea for corporations to be the ones funding this type of thing. It compromises the educational integrity of dealing with the subject subjectively from both sides. I wouldn't be surprised if in the future someone gets suspended for wearing a "bit torrent" t-shirt on anti-piracy day or something...
"And I'm right. I'm always right, but in this case I'm just a bit more right than I usually am." - Linus Torvalds
Now lets hope that they are going to just teach just copyright laws.... and not why its a happy idea to have logging software on your computer to "prevent" copyright infringements...
.Hack//* Owns me.
Really. No jokes. All /.ers that are UK parents should not only teaching the kids the value of open exchange of ideas. They should also go to the school and *loudly complain* against this if their kids are exposed to such disgusting political propaganda.
They could also organize counter-lessons, both in school with the aid of clever teachers or outside. We must reject this now, before it's too late.
-- Patent no.123456: A way to personalize
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The government is using the fact that students are a captive audience in order to push its political agenda? It's nice that a large new group of people is now getting to experience the same sort of disgust that many of us have already felt for years toward the DARE program. Welcome.
I'd rather be lucky than good.
I used to take copyright law at least halfway seriously; I have published a minor piece or two myself. Copyright law was always intended to foster creation of new works by offering a monopoly on their duplication for a few years. It seems to have worked well enough, but where is the justification for extending the period of expiring copyrights? For that matter, has there been a shortage of new material requiring new incentives? It all strikes me as stealing from the common wealth.
A class is not going to teach right and wrong. You know right and wrong. You dont care about someone elses version of right and wrong, you have your own. And whether you choose to do what they consider wrong or what you consiter wrong anyway isn't going to be decided in an ethics class.
Business owners that engage in shady deals aren't sociopaths- they know that what they're doing is 'wrong'. They simply don't care. Business Ethics classes won't give a criminal a bleeding heart and convert him to charitable donations.
Likewise, teaching copyright law wont do a convert evil file sharers into saints. If a person believes its wrong, they'll either do it anyway or they wont. If they believe its alright and the laws are screwed up, they'll likewise do it anyway or they wont.
The only good you could hope to get from classes teaching copyright law, sponsered by the music industry, is to scare kids into compliance at an early age. Make sure they understand that sharing a single MP3 in this day and age could potentially screw them over more than say, unprotected sex or smoking.
The class isnt there to teach people to be more 'moral'. It's to scare them into complacence. It's to get it into their heads that this is the LAW, so that from this point on, noone will question it just as noone questions cigarette taxes (another societal evil that no one questions because smoking's undesirable and it doesn't affect the nonsmokers that voted for it).
Corporate America has been influencing schools for a while now. Would a kid getting suspended for a bittorrent shirt somehow be worse than the kid who got suspended for wearing the pepsi shirt on coke day (or was it the other way around)?
I'd rather be lucky than good.
My theology teacher once described in class what happened at a Sunday school she teached at.
She would sit the children down and repeatedly ask them "Who loves you?" and the children were to reply "God loves me," every time.
I was horrified, but I was the only one.
That was the very moment I realized that I was not one of these people.
friends
Sharing with your friends is one thing, but in the context of 'file sharing' (P2P, or whatever the RIAA whipping boy of the day is), the entire Internet is not your 'friend'.
Previously, sharing music, and books with your friends was, if not encouraged, at least not actively sought out and prosecuted. Now, they have reportable numbers behind all that "sharing" and they can make it sound very, very bad.
Millions of dollars, thousands of files, millions of 'sharers'. And with those numbers, falsely inflated or not, they can influence the politicos into cracking down.
You do not have a "personal relationship" with the millions who happen to connect to Kazaa.
That's where the problem has come from.
Is it 'moral' to download/share copies of this work with friends (knowing that there ARE copies available but very rare?). I think so - especially given the fact that given AVAILABILITY I would buy them at a shot. Should copyright law prevent reprinting of obscurish material, just because the RECORD COMPANY (not the artist) says so? I take this to be a travesty of the intention of the creators of copyright legislation, who couldn't have foreseen such an available medium as the internet (and even if this were in line with THEIR intentions, I cannot justify it to myself, the only authority to which I am known to be ultimately responsible).
You almost had an insightful post.
The record companies want perpetual copyright for one reason: Whatever they promote hard becomes popular (see Britany Spears, Christina Agilera, any boy band, spice girls....)
That is, if they chose, they could promote and repackage and 'make sexy' your 1950s recordings and sell them again. Hard to do that when they've given up the copyright, or it has expired.
There is TONS and TONS of music with no 'copyright' obligation around. Unsigned artists, copy right expired stuff... There is lots of audience, but the music biz owns the method by which that music gets promoted to the masses (payola via radio & MTV) and hence whatever the masses want really bad right now.
Marketting, promotion and sales work too well. But you have to have a respected copyright on the material you promote before you can sell it.
I think the people should just question what is sold to them, think for themselves, and research all the music out there without taking whatever is shoved down their throats by the music biz. Then we wouldn't have a problem.
But then the US might not be up to its ass in IRAQ, we might have reasonable caring politicians in office, and the world might be a better place.
When you realize that when students for instance use the wikipedia, which is a rich source of knowledge, are flunked because their teacher refuses to accept any other source than the "official" recources.
I wonder what would stop a company as Microsoft changing information to make it spin their way just because their Encarta is being seen by the Microsoft sponsored teacher as the only "official" source?
I use Microsoft only as a well known example but essentially you can fill in any corporate name here...
The quest next century will be who's info is been seen as a truthfull reference to things.
Same goes for blogs, which are only very clever marketing tools to spin desinformation towards the badly informed masses.
"British Schoolkids Get Copyrighted Education"
British school children must now pay lifetime royalties for the privilege of an education.
Pretty scary, but it does seem to be the direction in which we are going.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Harmlessly passing your time in the grassland away;
Only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air.
You better watch out,
There may be dogs about
I've looked over jordan, and I have seen
Things are not what they seem.
What do you get for pretending the danger's not real.
Meek and obedient you follow the leader
Down well trodden corridors into the valley of steel.
What a surprise!
A look of terminal shock in your eyes.
Now things are really what they seem.
No, this is no bad dream.
Bleating and babbling I fell on his neck with a scream.
Wave upon wave of demented avengers
March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.
Have you heard the news?
The dogs are dead!
You better stay home
And do as you're told.
Get out of the road if you want to grow old.
Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.
Good point.
.mac too.)
But we are in a new era. The government can make laws, but we have the tools to circumvent the law now. Look at P2P networks; in particular look at Freenet-like networks. "They" can tell us that sharing is bad and whatnot, but we can give them the big middle finger and untraceably send our music to our closest friends.
They might not like it, but we can do it. If everyone does something, then it's the law that's wrong, not the people.
Selling music may not be a valid business model anymore. Sad, yes. Artists may have to tour to get money. After all you can't pirate a concert, right!
It's the same reason Mac OS X doesn't have a "Is this copy of OS X legal?" menu item. Apple doesn't care. You already paid a lot for your Powerbook; that's enough for them. (They can make money on
You can't pirate a Powerbook. You can't pirate a concert. Selling easily copyable items is not going to be viable in the future. Sorry, Mr. Hatch; sorry Mr. Valenti. You are obsolete.
My other car is first.
Free Speech On The Approved Reading List
I once read that a story is a way to slip past your emotional immune system. It's like a virus that makes you feel something you wouldn't always feel. If that's true, then it's no wonder that certain stories are banned, that we won't let our children read some of them. Do we dare allow them to feel something that we don't think they should?
I was told by my teachers that school was to help prepare me for life. It was to give me vital skills that I would need in order to achieve something in this world. I don't believe that's the case. What I think our schooling is for is to prevent us from thinking the thoughts we'd think otherwise. Maybe we've even convinced ourselves that general schooling for everyone beyond a certain point does us good, but I think we're deluding ourselves.
One of the most ironic situations I've been in was having my history teacher telling our class that indoctrination was absolutely wrong and that it should never have been done. If you don't get the irony, please put this paper down and walk back to your place in line.
It's because of the severe irony of this all that I'm sitting in the back of Mr. Johnson's English class writing this, instead of having him tell me just how I'm supposed to interpret the story we're currently dissecting. I stopped listening to his opinions when he told me once that my interpretation of a story was completely wrong with no basis. I spent half the class describing exactly why my opinion on this was what it was.
He agreed that just maybe my interpretation could be valid. Unfortunately, it wasn't the 'right' interpretation, so we couldn't be bothered to look into it. Once again, if you believe there can only ever be one correct interpretation to a story, please shuffle back into your line.
Lisa's interpretation of the story we're looking at right now didn't agree with what's sitting on that paper in front of him. What scares me is that she isn't even saying why she thinks she's right. Lisa just sat down again, because she knows she is wrong and this isn't the way she should think.
In another severe dose of irony, I just recalled a cartoon from the forties that a friend showed me once. It's a Disney cartoon showing just how evil Hitler's indoctrination of the German children was. It talks all about how Hans is taught to believe that mercy is wrong. The cartoon, targeted at small children, tells us that telling small children what to think is absolutely wrong.
In our school systems, we teach children that they must be accepting of everyone, though there is only one way to read this story. Is it any wonder that we have kids who are unsure of what their place in the world is? They've got no idea what's supposed to be happening at this time in their life. The haven't had it defined for it yet. You in the back. The one who's only reading this because it's an attack on the current system. Go stand in line again.
I have a friend who is rather talkative, especially in group conversations. Except that all he says is taking the last opinion, then not even bothering to reword it. He's an excellent parrot. It scares me that no one else seems to notice this about him.
Mr. Johnson is wondering what I'm writing down. He never dictated any notes for us to take on this story. Why am I writing? God forbid I might be learning on my own.
Conforming to what they say I'm supposed to be would be so much easier if they just gave me a list of the thoughts I'm allowed to think. It couldn't be more than a couple of pages long.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a religion class.
The followin homework is copyright (c) 2004 Billy, 4th grade.
Unauthorized reproduction or "counterfeiting" of this manuscript can lead to criminal prosecution. Bypassing the reviewing process of this homework using so called cheat detection services/devices is a VIOLATION of the DMCA and can result in criminal prosecution. This homework is provided AS IS and Billy disclaims any responsibility for errors, factual or otherwise. And ideas, good or bad, in this manuscript are patent pending and by reading said ideas you irrevocably license any patent you own on related ideas to billy. If you bought this homework you are not allowed to resell it. wearing the accompanied "I am a booggerbrain" t-shirt whilst reading this manuscript is MANDATORY by punishment of a wedgie!
By reading this homework you agree to above licence, if you do not agree please rate this homework A+ and return it to the right-holder..
On a serious note:
Reading though what can only be descriped as a corporage propaganda leaflet you get a great idea of the angle the big labels are aiming for. It reads like: "Kids should learn to appreciate music, music is food for the soul, music is great, kids should learn to play instruments, kids should learn to respect copyright. You can easily teach kids to play the bongo, playing the violin makes kids smarter, copyright means you never have any right to copy, copying is evil, kids can really enjoy playing bongo`s, you will obey the brightly colored leaflets, schools should get much more cash for doing music"... etc.
Imagine if kids actually start making music, get ignored by the music industry who told them making music was great... put some recordings on p2p nets and get to do concerts right away just because of talent.
It would be great if kids end up learning about the actual copyright laws. It would be cool if you could explain kids the GPL while the New York times screws up on its concept. (ibm releasing to the public domain)
Way more serious:
Marketeers are often said to worry sick about the day that the 4+ hours of TV/day youth might end up being totaly resistant to advertising. Thats probably the reason why we have to endure GPS enabled coke can advertising campaigns. (and ofcourse a higher daily dose of advertising) I don`t passionately hate "multi-nationals". Anyway, not more then I dislike governments looking for the fastest way to get an easy to manage police state. But the idea of home economics teaching why brand name products are always better then store brand ones, and why you should always buy the newest kind of washing detergent because there is just so much progress in this product-line... well, that scares me.
I guess I for one welcome our new teachers and corporate overlords, Can I help placing that giant TV frame into the classroom?