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.

Comments

If it happesn

[Lord_Dweomer]

If this ever happens in the US to my little brother, I will be sure to educate him, and provide him with PLENTY of insightful questions and comments about the motives behind this "education" the TRUTH about copyright laws, and some wonderful facts about the industries pushing this.

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.

Do we really want corporate America influencing...

[Techie2000]

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...

Only the Begining....

[The Great Hamster]

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...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Right and Wrong

[Lewis Daggart]

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).

Re:As a record store owner.

[bigberk]

Your holier-than-thou attitude is realy condescending

I didn't mean to be condescending, I'm just suggesting that music might be not as worth buying as it used to be. Just because marketers force feed template-generated pop music down kids' throats every chance they get, and there's a knee jerk reaction from the 'consumers' that looks like "buying interest"... perhaps in fact the audience tires of the product after a single purchase. Because I really don't think kids are as stupid as marketers hope they are, and there are way more entertaining things to do with an afternoon then listen to Unremarkable Band XYZ.