RIAA's Elementary School Copyright Curriculum

selven writes "In a blatant campaign devoid of any subtlety, the RIAA is fighting for the hearts and minds of our children with its Music Rules, a collection of education materials on how to respect copyright. The curriculum includes vocabulary such as 'counterfeit recordings, DMCA notice, "Grokster" ruling, legal downloading, online piracy, peer-to-peer file sharing, pirate recordings, songlifting, and US copyright law.' There is no mention whatsoever of fair use. Compounding the bias, it includes insights such as that taking music without paying for it is 'songlifting,' and that making copies for personal use and then playing them while your friends come over is illegal. On the bright side, it includes math showing that the total damages from copyright infringement by children in the US amount to a measly $7.8 million."

Comments

Okay, You Have the Floor

[eldavojohn]

There is no mention whatsoever of fair use.

Well, there actually is a mention of fair use in the parent guide but all it does is refer you to a better site. The only other mention is -- hilariously enough -- in their own terms of use about using the materials on the site under fair use.

But that's beside your point, let's play a game. Pretend you have the floor in front of primary school students and you want to explain fair use. What do you say?

I'm not saying they shouldn't mention it. Because it's not well defined. Fair use is, in my opinion, an abomination in that it's a "law" that's not defined in anyway. And what's even better is when I try to cite the safe harbor laws or portion limits on Slashdot, I'm ridiculed over and over (not that I've ever practiced law but as a citizen it's the most I can find) despite my analysis being correct! So with my masters degree in computer science, I am clearly unable to pin down what precisely constitutes fair use and what does not. I imagine that were I charged with uploading and editing fair use samples of every song off of David Bowie's Hunky Dory album (which I did) that my innocence would depend entirely on how much money I have for a lawyer ... not the law. Because "fair use" is ambiguous and the so called "doctrine" is downright laughable. If you don't agree with me, go ahead and post a response arguing for or against my above Wikipedia edits being "fair use." I'll gladly play the devil's advocate if someone doesn't beat me to it.

So given the above information, would you please outline how you would explain this to children? Or how you plan to "win their hearts and souls" with the fair use doctrine?

What I want for Christmas: someone in my government to man up and bring any amount of clarity to copyright law, fair use and (while we're at it) patents. Something shouldn't be unclear until you've already been sued for doing it. That's how you find yourself in situations like the RIAA suing thousands of people and watching court case after court case resolve to millions in damages awarded from an average citizen to a huge conglomerate of lawyers and labels.

Re:Okay, You Have the Floor

[eldavojohn]

"You have the right to use small parts of something covered by copyright (like quoting a book for an essay) to comment on it, write a review about it or parody it and you're allowed to make copies for yourself to use."

So you're saying that if I take very small samples of The Beatles' White Album (as I consider the album an entire work) and make new songs out of those small samples, it is completely legal and I can distribute or sell said reconstructions because they are small parts or parodies? Do I need to merely include a comment on my "mashup" to make that legal?

Or if I take a single episode of the Family Guy (the whole series is what seven seasons now?) I can distribute that with my website with commentary on how it's great for society?

Re:Okay, You Have the Floor

[amicusNYCL]

making copies for personal use and then playing them while your friends come over is illegal

This sounds like FUD to me (courtesy of "selven", apparently). Here's one of the "activities" in one of the PDFs:

Take a look at these scenarios. See if you can spot the songlifters who are breaking the copyright law...

Caitlin wants to listen to music as much as possible. She copies all the music she buys online onto blank CDs so she can listen to her music when her friends come over to play. And she transfers the music she buys on CD onto her MP3 player so she can listen to her music when driving in the car with her family.

Caitlin is not a songlifter because personal use is permitted when music fans buy their music. Caitlin can copy her music onto her hard drive and her MP3 player. Caitlin can even burn a CD with her own special mix of music she has purchased.

I'd like to see a reference on where they say that it's illegal to play your music for your friends. That's specifically what I'm trying to find in the PDFs, I think that claim by TFS is false.

Of course, this entire "program" seems like a nightmare to sit through. Look at this stuff, in the teacher's guide:

Write the word songlifting on the chalk-board and ask students what they think it means.

*raise hand* I know! That's a word that was made up by a shady corporate lobby.

Have students conduct the survey [to find out who they know is a "songlifter"] as home- work, emphasizing that they should only collect information, not names. Use the chalkboard to compile their findings and investigate trends. For example: Which is the most common type of songlifting? Which age group has the most songlifters? Have students use the results of their survey to determine whether or not songlifting is a serious problem.

So Billy, do you download songs? Oh yeah, what do you use? I haven't heard of that one, I should check it out. For research, I mean.

Next, draw the copyright symbol on the
chalkboard. Ask if students know what this
symbol means and where they might have seen
it

I weep for our nation's schoolchildren..

Re:What's wrong with teaching?

[itsdapead]

But illegal downloading really IS stealing.

No it isn't: Illegal downloading is copyright infringement - it may be against the law, but it has nothing to do with theft. In other news, dropping litter is not assault with a deadly weapon, and shoplifting is not murder.

Dropping gum on the sidewalk is reprehensible behaviour, but we don't call it "attempted shoe homicide" and send people to the Big Chair for it.

Last time I looked, the only religion which included "Thou shalt not infringe copyright" in its commandments was Scientology.

That's the problem: there's nothing wrong with teaching kids the facts about copyright. The problem is with teaching kids industry propaganda about copyright which exagerates its seriousness, and is really about vested interests trying to maintain control of the industry in an age when most musicians would do better by givimng away music and making their money from gigs and t-shirts.