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Librarians to the Rescue
Duke Machesne writes "Citing concerns over materials being distributed to American students by the BSA, MPAA, and RIAA's evil minions, the American Library Association will begin distributing its own, more balanced material this winter. The material will deal with insignificant and oft-overlooked details like fair use. More information on Wired News."
And not just because to "balance things out", you'd have to push a line that would make all copyright questionable.
The proper way to "balance" this is to not allow the **AA access to the schools. This isn't education, it's propaganda. Let them buy time in the media like every other business.
Librarians and free media have always been the standard-bearer for issues of personal liberty. A while back, a group of publishers sued libraries for distributing books. Libraries have carried books, even when they've been shunned by society. They were the first ones to rail against the PATRIOT Act. They are one of the most significant forces against promoters ignorance, misinformation, disinformation, and junk science in existance right now. Remeber who had the fewest misconceptions about the Iraq war?
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
Not to mention literacy, which presumably sustains sales of books in the long term. Imagine what it'd be like if anyone who wanted to read had to pay.
This borders on the obvious but librarians love books, which means that they are often well-informed liberals in the enlightenment sense of that word, i.e., someone who is broad-minded and tolerant of the views of others and expect others to behave in the same manner.
They also understand that our cultural heritage depends on free sharing for its preservation and nurturing -as does innovation. Librarians are therefore quite suspicious of those who try to place limits on the sharing of cultural outputs, particularly when they do so to benefit from the social conjectures and economic dislocations produced by a given technological moment in history.
Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
Actually, education begins at home, indoctrination begins at school.
nos laetus epulor qui would domito nos
It is possible to be both a strong supporter of the philosophy of copyright and yet oppose specific copyright law.
Not to mention private interests being allowed to making their case as fact in the public schools without so much as a representative of a counterpoint.
I certainly hope school librarians take up the gauntlet, but my experience suggests that to do so might well endanger their jobs.
KFG
"We're trying to educate children at a very young age about the importance of protecting copyrighted works," said Diane Smiroldo, vice president of public affairs for the BSA. "It's important to start talking to them at a very young age about creative works online and what you can and can't share with your friends."
Smiroldo compared the BSA's program to an antismoking or antilittering campaign. The curriculum doesn't talk about fair use but focuses on what are "right and wrong" behaviors online.
Hmm, lemme see, smoking harms the kid himself, littering defaces the entire community, and "pirating" copyrighted works hurts -- oh right, the Business Software Alliance.
And lemme see, these kids, having mastered all that readin', writin', and 'rithmeticin' -- ain't no child left behind no any more --, they've got plenty of time to spend learning a corporate lobbying group's version of "right and wrong".
I've never pirated music or software, and I do believe that the MPAA and the BSA should have the protection of copyright -- including the right to bring civil suit.
But when they try to co-opt the education of children and get the Department of Justice to bring their civil suits for them, and to pile criminal charges on top, well, it seems to me the corporations are getting much more than a fair shake.
Begins to remind me of the "War on Drugs" -- a "War" we'll never win but which benefits corporations building and running prisons (and the drug mafias and the prison guards' union) at the expense of cops and taxpayers and citizens.
It even makes me wonder if the "content providers" have gone so far as to forfeit their moral rights to copyright protection. There comes a time when you just have to say that the "cure" is worse than the "disease" (as for instance, the "War on Drugs") and tell those grabbing more than their fair share of money and legal power, "this far and no farther".
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Imagine what it'd be like if anyone who wanted to read had to pay.
We'd have a culture where most people get their information from visual and audio media like television and radio and ignore in-depth analysis found in newspapers and magazines.
Oh.
You, MBCook, are a damned fool. The ALA supports a few things you might not have heard of on Fox News. We like to call them democracy, freedom, and liberty. You see, we, and I really mean me and the other library students with whom I am friends, believe that each American has the right to information and that access to information is the cornerstone of democracy.
Public librarians, of which my wife is one, do not want children to look at pornography. They also don't want children to wonder why they can't research papers on gay rights or learn about breast cancer. Filters do not work. They let some bad things through and they block some good things. Every day we see children unattended in the library. Their parents and apparently you would like to impose upon us the responsibility of parenting these children.
So, I find it lamentable that you hate the ALA who fights to protect your right to read without intervention by the Department of Homeland Security and defends Mark Twain from book burning "concerned parents". I am more disturbed, however, that you feel the ALA ideological slant (again, freedom;liberty;democracy) is evil.
I'm sorry, you can disagree but not label the other party evil. It sounds really childish and dilutes the meaning of a rather harsh term. It also distracts people from the message you are trying to get across.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Don't blame him. He's blindly spouting rhetoric. The reason he's a neocon is because neoconservatism strongly appeals to insecure people...i.e., nerds. Neoconservatism is a "manly man" political philosophy. (I'm trying to remain as neutral as possible.) Neoconservative rhetoric appeals to the insecure because it makes people feel dominant, in control, alpha-male, and morally superior.
As far as I'm concerned, as a recovered ex-neoconservative, this rhetoric does not correlate with reality. However, I can't blame him. It's taken him over like a virus, just like it had done to me. Even the most logically rigorous are prone to this powerful fallacy.
It is possible to be both a strong supporter of the philosophy of copyright and yet oppose specific copyright law.
Given the current copyright law, it's pretty much impossible to be a strong supporter of the US founders' philosophy of copyright and *not* oppose specific copyright law.
The only way you can really support the current copyright system is if you buy into the content producers' notion that copyright is some sort of perpetual, natural and even inalienable right to collect cash for every use, rather than the carefully balanced social contract originally intended.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
This isn't education, it's propaganda.
My kids are past elementary school, but we've had to deal with at least two other equally bogus programs that were nevertheless strongly supported by some of the administrators:
Much of this nonsense didn't stop, despite numerous complaints from parents, until Consumer Reports wrote up the practice.
The only role that these sorts of things have in the classroom is in a high school level civics style class that discusses why they should not be used in the classroom.