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Hong Kong Boy Scouts to Protect IP
phresno writes "Declan McCullagh at C|net's News.com has a short article on the development that the Hong Kong Boy Scouts Association has teamed up with the MPA to create an intellectual property merit badge. Mike Ellis of the MPA hopes this program will 'provide thousands of young people -- future leaders -- with a better understanding of the value of intellectual property.' Those with tinfoil hats will surely be thinking of the youth in Orwell's 1984."
8. Is it permissible to accept a free copy of a computer game or program from a friend? Why or why not?
The full requirement list can be found here.
I still stole software before and after earning the badge, and pretty much all of my troop members traded games and stole music like any other typical set of adolescent men.
However, as an Eagle Scout, I have changed my stance and was disappointed that this merit badge didn't make it to the states.
Kids also make the best soldiers since they lack the life perspective of adults (my theory). I was recently reading an article about Ugandan rebels who kidnap children from orphanages to retrain them into miniature killing machines. The truly chilling part was the brutal unquestioning efficiency with which the children carried out executions of prisoners.
Why am I on Slashdot? I'm bored. Why am I bored? I'm on Slashdot.
Below are the requirements for the Computers Merit Badge which was "updated" a few years ago:
Free MacMini
Yes, because excluding gays and atheists from their organization is both honorable and good, right?
Excluding homosexuals is the new and "acceptable" racism but them excluding atheists isn't surprising...
The BSA is traditionally quite religion oriented ("do my duty to God..." and all that) and many faiths offer religion awards (which are difficult to obtain I might add). Hell, most BSA troops are sponsored by Churchs!
In the Troop that I belonged to we had a kid that was an atheist. They kept their mouths shut about it and the son eventually earned Eagle shortly after I did. Big deal.
In an organization that is based on relgion, hosted in relgious buildings, and says you should believe in some sort of God (doesn't matter which) you can be happy just playing along. If you want to stir the pot they have every right to shun you.
Don't like it? Don't join up and start your own organization.
As usual, the media distorts the picture.
Actually, this "badge" is useless. The number of kids going around buying copy PS2 games, CDs, etc. is amazing in Hong Kong. I'd say over 99% of PS2 games, software, DVDs, etc. in Hong Kong are copies/counterfeit. No doubt, they'll just get the badge and continue on their merry way as usual.
Counterfeit software and goods is a way of life and culture in Hong Kong, China, and many places in Asia. You have "Woman's Street", which is an ENTIRE long street dedicated to fake goods. You even have police patrolling the area to keep it safe from pickpockets! But they are never shut down. Go there to find your "LV" bags, "Dior" rings, and "Rolex" watches.
In fact, now that they have made it safer to go to these places, MORE tourists are turning up. There are less seedy types and more goods now.
So I really think this is a pointless exercise. Now that China and HK are working together more, even MORE copy stuff is going to HK. And with HK's famous low crime rate and focus on making money and business, it is the IDEAL place to get these kind of things: total safe, cheap, available everywhere.
**FREE** Track and view your phone's via CellID and/or WIFI and/or GPS
Right, but copyright violation isn't theft any more that it is piracy. You can try in your Orwellian way to rename it, but the law hasn't changed yet.
Note the current requirement #8 for Computers Merit Badge in the U.S.: http://www.meritbadge.com/mb/036.htm
Yeah, that's why not believing in God gets you kicked out of the Boy Scouts. No, serious, it does. If you say "I don't believe in God," you can no longer be considered a Boy Scout and will get kicked out of your troup.
And pine wood derbies were for Cub Scouts, not Boy Scouts.
Specifically: "...or the right of the people peaceably to assemble"
The Boy Scouts, or any private group for that matter, may exclude whomever they so choose, for any reason. This particular group does not believe that homosexuality or atheism are acceptable lifestyles.
Who are YOU to impose your beliefs upon them? Isn't that the very thing you people are fond of accusing 'conservative' groups of doing?
It is petty of you to deride an organization that first and foremost encourages community volunteerism and service. It is best that people like you don't associate with the Boy Scouts; your involvement would taint their good work.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
"Intellectual Property" is a legal fiction, created with the explicit purpose of encouraging progress in the arts and sciences. In the days before costless electronic duplication, granting a temporary legal monopoly on a work was a good strategy to achieve this end. However, modern technology has called into question the validity of this definition of "property". It's legitimate to challenge the notion that a particular combination of words, sounds, and images can be owned for all eternity (even if eternity is purchased on an installment plan).
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
The BSA is at least partially supported by government money - mines and yours. They should have to live up standards that don't exclude for reasons like race, religion, and sexual preference.
Er.. Actually, it isn't. The BSA does not get one red cent of funding from the federal government. Maybe in grants to do something, but not as general funding. The troops are entirely self financed.
As for excluding people based on race and religion? They do not exclude based on race, and the only troops that are allowed to deny based on religion are the mormon troops. But that is because the churches have all their boys join the troop. They're large enough as is.
That leaves sexual preference. The only way that the troops do exclude. That comes down to the scouts being a religious organization (of many relgions, not just one). With most of the religions believing that being gay is a sin. Nothing you can do about that.
But, back to the money, none of yours is paying for the troops to operate. As for mine, well, I'm a scoutmaster. So some of mine is. Don't want to support the scouts? Don't buy anything from their fundraisers and don't donate any money. But the scouts don't get any money from the governments unless it's for a job they do.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Check out Scouting for All's website at http://www.scoutingforall.org/packtroop/index.shtm l - lots of good information on the subject.
You, dear sir, are a complete idiot.
It is indeed perfectly reasonable to pay ENTERTAINERS for their work. It is not reasonable to pay some bloody cartel which fights tooth-and-claw against any form of distribution medium which they do not control and profit from. Personally, I don't buy CDs, because I think it is wrong for the ENTERTAINERS to get a few pennies out of the twenty dollars I spend to purchase an item that costs all of about five dollars to make and distribute.
The ENTERTAINERS, at least the ones that aren't owned or owned by major corporations, are thrilled about MP3s and BitTorrent. Why? Because they can finally make their work available to a wide audience in a way never before possible. The technology that exists now allowes authors, musicians, and producers to bring their work to the public, without the requirement of access to a multibillion-dollar private distribution network, because they've got a multibillion-dollar public distribution network -- the Internet.
ENTERTAINERS who produce quality in this marketplace are rewarded; look at the Ataris, for example. They put up not only MP3s of all their music, but also make the sheet music and gutair tabs available online FOR FREE, and they still sell CDs and T-shirts like mad. Only rather than the RIAA getting the profits, the band, the people ACTUALLY DOING THE ENTERTAINING, are making money.
The RIAA and MPAA could play in this ballgame, if they were willing to just let people copy; they could still sell at the same price point, and would still make a boatload of cash off the people who are either serious fans, technically illiterate enough to grab the file off of BitTorrent, and people who just want The Theatre or The Concert experience. There is still tons of money to be made, probably more than they make now, if they just played nice with the community.
The problem is, they don't, and they won't. They have extended copyright to the force of patent law, and made it possible to OWN ideas as if they were property, at least in the 'States, and all so that they can control distribution. So that the MPAA and RIAA can guarantee that You Have Paid, and that You Aren't Stealing Their Art. Copyright was intended so that the author of a work could profit for a limited amount of time; it was never intended to turn art into a commercial industry, yet with the present limits on copyright, art can be nothing but a commercial industry.
Art does not come from industry. It comes from taking a pile of ideas, mixing them up, and pulling out something that is somehow new and rehashed at the same time. All of the great novels of the world, all of the great paintings, the great symphonies, every piece of art that has stunned mankind has come about only because people had free access to the ideas. All of art copies other art, and without this process, no new art is produced. The process is, in short, evolutionary, and evolution does not work in a system where the copying of ideas, known as variation in this analogy, does not happen.
The RIAA and MPAA want to own all of Art. They want it packaged, boxed, and unoffensive enough to sell at Wal-Mart. To do this, they must control all distribution, and prevent Those Who Have Not Paid and Those Who Are Not Authorized from being involved in Art as anything more than a passing pursuit. The cartels' quest for money comes at the expense of the ENTERTAINERS, the people producing the art in its myriad forms that we so enjoy, and to claim that this is somehow morally right is a perversion of logic of the highest order.
--
I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
I couldn't find the details about this badge anywhere in the http://www.scout.org.hk/. Apperantly they have not uploaded the details of this new badge or they're not enthusiastic about it.
3 3&cid=12424010, this does not really matter anyway because no one would really care.
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From the Standard [1], this badge is NOT a MERIT BADGE. It's a proficiency badge which you cannot put it on the scout shirt. Besides, what you only need to do is to attend a series of seminars/indoctrinations as you see fit, and vola, you got the badge. The local media did try not to twist the story too much. So it's not really a matter of brainwashing after all, and Slashdotters should not really go crazy about this subject. Besides, some1somewhere was right on his post #12424010 http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1482
The HK SAR government seems to be quite enthusiastic about this and issued a press release [2].
References:
[1] http://www.thestandard.com.hk/stdn/std/Metro/GE04
[2] http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/200504/30/0429
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