How To Address A Visit from MPAA Senior VP Rich Taylor?

tedswiss writes "Fate has dropped a unique opportunity upon my lap: I teach at a moderately small independent school who has as one of its alums Richard Taylor. Mr. Taylor is both speaking at our start-of-year festivities and being honored with this year's "Distinguished Alum Award." Having followed and been disgusted by the MPAA's corporate practices regarding DRM and government lobbying in the past (Anyone remember DeCSS?), I would love to make his visit a chance to truly educate our student body, not just indoctrinate them. The school administration is sympathetic to my plight, but I want to present them with more than just my complaints. How would you best make use of this opportunity if you found yourself in my shoes?"

Comments

Hmmm.

[MightyMartian]

Ask him if the MPAA uses the same "accounting" for determining losses due to piracy which its members so often use when declaring that movies rolling in cash in fact lost money.

Re:Don't be a jerk

[darkhitman]

Somebody more powerful, yes, but not necessarily someone more intelligent.

Who do you want to educate?

[mykepredko]

In your question, you are asking what question to ask to educate the student body - I would think that this would be an opportunity to educate Mr. Taylor.

If you read some of the other replies, you'll see that people believe that the appropriate greeting for him is tear gas or an AK-47.

I would think that the meeting would be a chance for him to see your fellow faculty and students as people and not as criminals as we are always viewed by the **AAs. It could be a good chance for him to sit down with students and understand how they would like to enjoy the products that he represents and discuss ways that are mutually beneficial to both parties.

If he isn't receptive to this idea, then bring out the tear gas and AK-47s.

myke

Let the students handle it.

[Spy der Mann]

1. A few days *before* his visit, open a debate in your classroom about filesharing, DMCA, DRM, piracy and the music and film industries' business models. Make your students do a research paper on it for homework (the homework will be BEFORE the class debate), and give the homework a +1 point over the final exam.

Perhaps you can research a little and give some pointers (links) that they can use for the research i.e. hackers' rants, slashdot posts, the 09 F9 scandal, and so on.

2. Invite the students to ask any questions they had when the MPAA Senior comes.
(I'm sure that after being educated with the debate, they'll ask questions on playing movies on Linux machines, DMCA, the broken DRM security model and so on).

3. Buy some popcorn and enjoy the fun. Trust me, It will get more embarrassing than Bill Gates' BSOD on the Win98 presentation. ;-)

Re:Let the students handle it.

[Anarchitect_in_oz]

Great idea although I'd tackle it without direct confrontation.
Organise a student debate make sure both sides are well covered with a mixture of good debaters and the tech and arts students.
Don't frame the debate as an attack but as a more general discussion.
say "Is IP good for my creative health?"

Then Invite Mr Taylor as a prominate member of a organisation charged with protecting the IP of creative content creaters you would like to take advantage of his insight to moderate and critic the debate. If the debate has covered both sides well then you forfill the purpose of education, also the invited guest either has to acknowledge both sides or show an obvious bias, which prevents any indoctrination.

Re:Don't be a jerk.

[langelgjm]

You are not in the business of making or financing motion pictures or record albums, so you have no real stake in the argument.

I have to disagree here. The legislation that is produced on behalf of MPAA and similar lobbying has real effects on many, many more people than just those who make or finance movies or music. It's one thing for an industry group to try and promote their own interests; it's something completely different when they do it at the expense of the public.

Certainly I agree with the necessity of showing respect, but on the other hand, the MPAA's representatives would do well to show some respect and attention to these students, as well - they are the generation that is growing up with torrents while Blockbuster slowly disappears. Their attitudes towards media consumption are shaping and will continue to shape the industry, whether the MPAA likes it or not.

The Biggest Lie

[Nom du Keyboard]

The Biggest Lie of the MPAA (and RIAA) is that every download equates to a lost sale, or a percentage of a lost sale. I'd love for him to have to explain how he can truly justify that position.

I'm not joking

[squarefish]

But rather than post here what you should ask him and risk he won't, see if he'd be willing to provide a /. interview.

It's worth a shot and may be the best way for someone to approach him directly about it. I'm sure he's probably been asked in the past and was able to easily ignore the emails or phone calls. Asking him to do so in person will put him on the spot and he may take it more seriously.

With such a visit

[Alien54]

from someone as illustrious as this ...

It is well worth it to propose a week long series of special classes about the man, the organization, and the controversies. This allows plenty of time for a balanced presentation from all of the viewpoints. And of course, you can encourage students to put on their on presentations and reports, etc. This should be done in advance of the visit, so that when there is a question and answer period with the celebrity, you can rest well assured that students will ask well informed questions.

Remember that Copyright is included (under Article 27) in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (some clever human rights PSAs here)

Article 27.

1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

and this provides for other angles and viewpoints that the MPAA might not be actually friendly to, even if they claim to be artist friendly. (Remember Hollywood accounting!) There is also the argument that the corporations are not acting in the best interest of the Artists, but their own personal profit.

finally, the European view on copyright and an artist's rights are significantly different compared to typical american viewpoints.

Re:With such a visit

[metlin]

You know, that just gave me an idea.

Just prepare a list of questions (say, 10) and print them out clearly. Distribute that to the students and to Mr. Rich Taylor.

Tell him that you expect clear and concise answers, not fluff and excuses. And in that list, you could include such questions as --

1. Why the MPAA's principles do not seem to agree with what even the UN's Declaration of Human Rights dictates?

2. Ask them how they think that the exaggerated numbers of piracy relate to the actual numbers? Bring some tangible evidence to the table and ask them how they think that copied media equals revenue lost.

3. Ask him what the MPAA thinks about such things as Creative Commons and how they could think that long-term copyrights (e.g. Disney) is conducive to what the founding fathers of this land had in mind?

4. Cite some examples of how DMCA has harmed people, and ask him his opinion on that. If he agrees with the DMCA, then obviously it is wrong. If he disagrees, you can ask him if he thinks the law should be tested in a court of law. After all, their tactic seems to be making even fair use hard for people.

5. Why are the big boys (RIAA, MPAA) afraid of new media? Isn't it like a scrivener complaining about the arrival of the printing press?

6. Bring up the issue of fair use and piracy - you could cite personal examples where you (or your friends) have had to download media because it was easier than making backups of your own data. How can the MPAA distinguish between such piracy?

7. Citing the previous case, explain that they should either understand that not all variants of piracy is bad, or alternatively make it easy for you to back up your own media. Trying to discourage both sounds like they are against the very concept of *you* copying *your* media.

8. Ask him what he thinks of you lending a book to your friend. And how is it different from you lending your movie to a friend? Now if the friend could easily make a copy of the book without spending a penny, is it bad? Ignoring today's copyright law, ask him if his business model is wrong or is the friend wrong?

9. On that same note, ask him if there are any plans of improving the existing business model, since it is clearly unsuitable for an era where things can be copied for free. Clearly, artists are being robbed, given how poor the Hollywood actors are and how they live in filth and squalor (well, to be fair, they *do* live in LA, but still...)

10. Bring up the issue of suppressing your own customers - and how it has worked out for people in the past. After all, suppressing something is not the best way to accomplish it, and sometimes being open can be better for everyone.

Re:With such a visit

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice. I'd also suggest looking at whatever lofty rhetoric the school has about their goals in the education of their students. Start a question with, "One of your alma mater's goals has always been to ..." and then use something about ethics in there. (Most schools have something like that.) And end it with, "How does your corporation's violations of ethics get your personal approval, as you control the organization which violates this(these) school goal(s)?"

It's such a shame that schools tell their students that people who donate money are the best, despite ethical considerations. If a school honored graduates who led ethical lives AND enriched society, they're much more valuable "products" of the school, and should bring greater esteem to the school, which, in turn, should have the school be more financially successful in the long run.

Re:Teamwork

[poopdeville]

You need to be very careful when you approach events like these. For example, David Horowitz was invited to Reed College to participate in a "discussion" (read: debate) his "Academic Bill of Rights". See: http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/archive/ 2006/August2006/ReedCollegeSteinbergerDebate082806 .htm. (Yes, TL;DR, I know. But the Ask Slashdotter might want to check it out)

Accusations of bad faith were flying all around. The consensus after the fact was that there was a miscommunication with David Horowitz. The event was billed as a debate, but he thought he could wing it and showed up essentially unprepared. Steinberger was very prepared.

The point being, accusations of bad faith were launched at an event where both speakers should have been prepared to debate. It would only be worse to try to seriously debate someone who isn't prepared.

Re:shut your mouth

[Anonymous Coward]

Then, let me amend my original post.

Take your paycheck and shut up. Quit your bitchin. Even less than having some damned student with no conception of the worth of creativity preaching at me, I really want to hear some freaking staff at a university preaching at me. Teach your class, THAT is your area of expertise. You have no expertise in this matter unless you teach copyright law, in which case you should teach your students that its still a law and that copyright infringement=jail time. If you don't teach copyright law, shut your pie hole and don't preach the benefits of illegal activity.