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California Elementary Schools To Test Anti-Piracy Curriculum
New submitter newbie_fantod writes "Ignoring the fact that the surest way to get a child to do something is to tell them not to, the RIAA and MPAA have developed an anti-piracy curriculum for kindergarten through grade 6. The pilot project is scheduled for testing in California schools later this year."
Mitch Stoltz, an EFF attorney, isn't impressed: “It suggests, falsely, that ideas are property and that building on others’ ideas always requires permission,” Stoltz says. “The overriding message of this curriculum is that students’ time should be consumed not in creating but in worrying about their impact on corporate profits.”
It's worked for years with every other product...
Get them while they're young and you'll have a "___________" (insert appropriate noun here) for life... Customer, slave, zealot, etc...
The only problem is that government is allowing corporations to push their agenda in the classroom... It wasn't enough to have it at the beginning of every one of their Disney movies --you know, the ones that kids watch ad infinitum, now they're allowed to spread their FUD in the schools, too! Yay!
How long before we see "Lunch! Sponsored by McDonald's", etc...
That's not the only issue at play here...
The backers for this program (RIAA/MPAA) are all wealthy, so their kids will never see these things in school. They'll be free from the propaganda and allowed to be creative and free. But, not the common man, because he can't afford freedom...
Hrmm... I wonder if that's how this is supposed to work... Freedom for those that can afford it...
Makes me wonder if there'll ever be a Star Trek-esque Utopia...
"Helping to keep you two steps ahead of the Thought Police!"
We learn by copying. Write what you see on the board. Repeat after me. Read the book aloud ....
Overlaying an "anti-piracy" theme is just going to be confusing and counter to the whole process.
Industry trade groups have no fucking business writing curriculum for children.
These assholes are of the impression the own everything, and that all of our laws and rights are subject to their approval.
Whatever idiot in the education system decided that indoctrinating children to the viewpoint of corporations should fired.
I can almost bet this will have things which are an incorrect interpretation of the law as it exists, and is nothing more than corporate propaganda.
This is the problem with America, whatever a company wants is considered right and good -- even when it's bullshit.
Most family's are forced to send there child to public schools by there circumstances. What idiot is letting a private organization force propaganda on them DARE was bad enough.
No sir I dont like it.
Is it really the case that you have companies and special interest groups creating the curriculum for your children?
How do you, as parents stand for this? You do know that you can go to the school board and freak out right? I think step 1 would be to organize a district wide freakout on the school board. Step 2, private school.
Maybe they should teach them other stuff like math, science and reading before consuming resources protecting the income of Justin Beiber. Just sayin...
working together. There's a word for that.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
The real problem with "kids these days" is that the internet has made it easier than ever to copy someone else's work and pawn it off as one's own. Of course, it's also become easier to Google a few sentences of a kid's paper and find that they cribbed it from a website, but even so, this is a pervasive problem. So if you're educating children that taking other people's intellectual property is wrong, how about starting with academic dishonesty and plagiarism?
"Little Mogambo will go to bed tonight with EMACS. There's no cure, but there is hope, through research. Send your generous donation to..."
Maybe it would be better to pay religions to convince the faithful that they will be tortured in Hell for copying things. Religions have a lot more experience with this kind of thing. I mean, WWJD? Would he download that torrent? Really? (Ignoring the incident with the money changer's tables for a moment.)
The Don't Copy That Floppy campaign has been a marvelous success. Floppy disk piracy is now down 100%. Cali can expect similar success with their initiative.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Do you own an eye patch? yes or no
Do you own a little raft with an outboard motor and an RPG?
Do you believe the letter "R" is also a word?
If you answered yes to any of the above, we found our violator.
Your test makes no sense. So kids with a lazy eye in tiny boats, carrying a copy of D&D are rapists?
with beginning grad students. In papers, they often feel like they have to cite every . last . factual . assertion . and . word . that . they . use, to the point of having paragraphs with 20 citations in them, unreadable. But they're so terrified of "plagiarism" and heard that lecture so many times at the beginning of so many classes that it's hard to talk them out of citing Pythagorus or some writing about him when using the Pythagorean theorem, Perskyi when using the word "television," and so on. Exhausting.
As an analog to this, they often hesitate to say anything new (i.e. anything they can't find a citation for). It's as though they feel like only institutions and the famous have license to make new things in the world, and then be cited. It recalls for me the similar divide between creators/consumers, with a hard territorial border in between the two camps, that RIAA/MPAA/BSA et. al. have tried to inculcate into the cultural consciousness.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Hopefully parents will have the courage to let even their youngest children in on the fact that not everything Teacher says is true. She may even lie.
Most Americans have WAY to much respect for authority and to strong a faith in government. This might be a good instructive moment.
Tell the child look your teacher is telling you mommy is a criminal who should be in jail; do thing that's true? Well keep that in mind when the man on TV behind the podium says things about someone like 'snowden' it may or may not be true; so always draw your own conclusions.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
If any teacher in the California public school system has even an ounce of self-respect, they will refuse to teach such skewed bullshit to their students.
Skewed how, you might ask? from TFA:
[The Internet Keep Safe Coalition's] president, Marsali Hancock, says fair use is not a part of the teaching material because K-6 graders don’t have the ability to grasp it.
That's not teaching.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
And what are our choices for this year? Where should we be spending our time and money? Pick carefully, the ones you want will be included in the curriculum and the ones you don't want won't be taught!
And the winner is....
Why not let the RIAA and MPAA write curriculum? Thanks to Common Core and Race to the Top, we are already paying big businesses such as Pearson tons of money to write curriculum that teachers aren't allowed to veer from. Then we pay these companies more to administer tons of non-developmentally-appropriate tests which parents and teachers are forbidden from seeing. Then, when the kids inevitably fail (in New York, only 30% of kids passed the tests... many of these kids were straight A students who were now considered failures), these companies "helpfully" have textbooks, teacher seminars, extra help sessions for students, instruction for administrators, etc all designed to improve the students' scores on the tests the companies wrote. And all available for a price, of course.
Don't even get me started on our education commissioner who was looking into taking legal action against parents who refused to let their kids take these tests.
Then there's the fact that charter schools are being pushed hard. These are schools which take public school funds, but are run by businesses, don't need to take any of the tests, don't require their teachers to have any sort of training in education, can pick and choose which students are allowed in. (Bad grades? You're out. Need special services? You're out.) Politicians seem to love charter schools so much and push them whenever they can. Governor Andrew Cuomo has already suggested using the "death penalty" for public schools that don't pass the overly hard tests. Of course, you can guess what he would replace them with. (No comments from him on what would happen to the kids that the charter schools refused to serve. Would a K-12 education become only for the select few that businesses decide can have it?)
I have a fifth grader and first grader who are dealing with all of this now so, yes, I might be a bit bitter.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
the U.S. was created very explicitly with the premise that [1] there is a God [2] that this God gave freedom and dignity to each individual (therefore the individual matters)
Boy, did you get your history wrong. Did they teach the First Amendment where you went to school?
and [3] those individuals LEND limited power to government .
Which is it, Christ or Ayn Rand? Can't have both.
The fact that a couple of antiquated cartels are trying to cling desperately to their obsolete business model isn't surprising. The only thing that is surprising is that the State of California is cooperating. If the MPAA / RIAA want to spread an anti-piracy message to children, let them buy advertising time on Nickelodeon, Disney & Cartoon Network. I don't really have a problem with their message, I just see no reason for the state to spend its resources to spread it.
The Gospel according to lolcat