US Fed Gov. Says All Music Downloads Are Theft

BenEnglishAtHome writes "Nearly all US government employees and contractors are subject to mandatory annual information security briefings. This year the official briefing flatly states that all downloaded music is stolen. The occasionally breathless tone of the briefing and the various minor errors contained therein are funny but the real eye-opener is a 'secure the building' exercise where employees stumble across security problems and resolve them. According to the material, the correct response to an employee who is downloading music is to shout 'That's stealing!' No mention is made of more-free licenses, public domain works, or any other legitimate download. If this were a single agency or department that had made a mistake in their training material it might not be so shocking. But this is a government-wide training package that's being absorbed by hundreds of thousands of federal employees, both civilian and military. If you see a co-worker downloading music, they're stealing. Period. Who woulda thunk it? Somebody should mirror this. Who wants to bet that copies will become hard to find if clued-in technogeeks take notice and start making noise?" Warning: this site gives a whole new meaning to "Flash heavy."

Comments

What's the Big Deal

[Ozric]

When is the last time they were right about anything? .. .. ..
Can't think of one? Yea Me either.

Nuff said

Lol

[jayhawk88]

According to the material, the correct response to an employee who is downloading music is to shout 'That's stealing!'

WTF is this, Dora the Explorer? Swiper, no swipey! Nice job, lame ass contract media company who probably got paid $10 million to create the worst instructional videos ever.

But that's the song name?!?

[dspkable]

So what if the name of the song is "THAT'S STEALING!". Sales will skyrocket for that band.

Re:Apple's iTMS may beg to differ

[Professor_UNIX]

It specifically excludes music you've purchased from being listed as illegal in the explanation if you pick the choice it doesn't want you to pick. The only thing I see wrong with their explanation is that it excludes legitimately "free" music such as stuff released into the public domain or under something like a Creative Commons license, but for the most part their definition is perfectly acceptable to the target audience (non-technical DoD users).

Re:Can I quit the government?

[hansamurai]

Is there an easy way to quit using the government?

Shrug.

Re:Can I quit the government?

[Mr2001]

Is there an easy way to quit using the government?

Move to Somalia. It's a government-free paradise!