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MPAA Backs Anti-Piracy Curriculum For Elementary School Students
An anonymous reader writes "A number of groups, including the MPAA, are pushing to educate elementary school kids about the dangers of piracy. From the article: 'A nonprofit group called the Center for Copyright Information, which is supported by the MPAA and other groups, has commissioned a school curriculum to teach elementary-age children about the value of copyrights. The proposed curriculum is still in draft stage, but it's already taking flak. Some critics say the curriculum promotes the biased agenda of Hollywood studios and music labels. Others contend it would use up valuable classroom time when U.S. public schools are already struggling to teach the basics.'"
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/09/24/1235226/california-elementary-schools-to-test-anti-piracy-curriculum
The best thing about UDP jokes is I don't care if you get them or not
The Nazis also pushed for youth indoctrination to attempt to create generations of followers. Glad DARE and MAFIAA learned the lesson.
Of course we all know this will be biased. Piracy funds terrorism, illegal drugs, crime and violence.
Capitalism was a fun experiment.
I respectfully submit a request to change the tag on this story from "education" to "indoctrination".
[End Of Line]
Movie execs need their private jets, blow, and hookers to relax after a hard day of not paying taxes and buying congress people.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
It isn't nice to share your toys, you're stealing money that the toy manufacturers deserve when your friend Johnny doesn't buy his own toy!
CAPTCHA: Retail
We don't teach our children to think, we teach them to consume.
Lets say the world digitized everything we had, books, movies, video games. Then the poor would have more access to educational resources and would be more cultured! The Internet could be a giant library.
If we really said media had value, their argument gets worse for keeping it behind a pay wall. Lets say the average cost of media pieces are 2$, and people would use on average =25,000 more pieces of media because they were free. Then you have about 2 billion people who have access to this. The created wealth for the world instantly would be +2*25,000*2,000,000,000 or 100 trilion dollars of added wealth to the system! That isn't anything to sneeze at.
The argument all the kneejerkers all say is that people would stop making media for cash. And yes, suddenly only people who strongly believed in sharing with the world would still make media. This means the little guy would have more power of expression. If big projects needed to be made, we could just have projects like kickstart do them.
People could still do some stuff behind a paywall like subscription based video games if they could.
My own personal idea is that copyright/patents should only last like 5-7 years, then everything is in public domain. This way the old guard could still keep plugging on to a degree.
This is just like the pharmaceutical industry funding D.A.R.E..
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Oh, stop, you're killing me
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I say in religion class.
...than they were in the old days .
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
In Soviet Russia, downloads pirate YOU!!!!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
oh come on! Think of the poor MPAA losing their shirt just because times change. And hey, if schools are having troubles right now, they're sitting on a MOTHERLOAD of a profitable resource: A captive and impressionable audience. I'm sure the MPAA would be willing to part with a few dollars to have a SIMPLE and PRODUCTIVE message sent to our youths.
And why stop there? I'm sure that ExxonMobile would be willing to donate to our children's future and supply a brief explanation of the benefits of fracking. Halliburton would be able to give an up-close and insightful description of political issues to bolster their social science awareness. Microsoft would be able to explain what all happens when you agree to those complicated EULAs. They could also comment on the importance of sharing, caring, and litigating anyone who dares do it with your toys. Monsanto would do wonders in the biology class.
Just think of the possibilities.
YOU"RE ALL A BUNCH OF THIEVING FUCKERS!!!!
You'll be the death of me, making me get off my lazy ass and work @ McDonald's, the only other job I'm qualified for.
If I'm understanding this correctly, the music labels are now resorting to re-educating future generations in a futile attempt to protect their obsolete business models. Their meddling with the legal system, constant redefinition of copyright terms and heavy-handed persecution of those they see as "offenders" have, as predicted by everyone except them, done nothing to prevent people doing what human beings have loved to do with audible culture for millennia - sharing it. These idiots probably see this as a good idea. What next? Selectively assigning breeding privileges to the population based on an exam paper sponsored by the Corporate Overloads of America to ensure your opinions conform to our scientifically proven CorrectThink(TM)?
1st, 2nd 4th and 5th amendment things.
1: Say what you want, take pictures in public
2: You can have guns to protect yourself
4: No seacrhes with out a warrant
5: Right to remail silent
More than just learning them, but actually how they can be applied in everyday life. Theory and Application!
Give Credit," "It's Great to Create,"ECT the RIAA tells the artests that but uses a lot of loop holes and Hollywood book keeping to not pay them.
If this works half as well as the D.A.R.E program lying to children. Which went on to cause a giant upsurge in the drug use.
We're going to have a generation of super pirates!
I dare the administration to tell me I have to teach this curriculum to my students. I'll give my own slant on it and end up teaching anonymous proxy, torrents, ripping, you name it...
Actually as common core, students have to work more with media. As a result we are ripping DVDs and cds and editing these to meet some educational goals... I am sure that is against their curricula.
bastards. (*IAA, not the students, this time.)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
As long as I can form a coalition that gets equal time promoting piracy and clearly exposes the Hollywood MAFIAA for what it really is I have no problem with this.
Otherwise it's essentially Nazi-style propaganda, which has no place in our schools. Sorry MAFIAA, but no.
yea...this is DEFINITELY going to work. we all know that piracy is illegal... we do it because we think the mpaa are assholes and overprice everything.
Why don't we start with the fact that Hollywood was founded as it was about as far from New York and their IP laws about the movie industry as you could get in those days? Let's make sure we cover the theft of material from the public domain for corporate use too.
Don't forget to cover the MPAA's own history of corruption. The RIAA should not be forgotten either, they have a long history of ripping of artists and we need to make sure we educate people on that. We should have a special section on Hollywood accounting that covers how you have a billion dollar blockbuster that costs $100 million to make and officially loses money. Make sure that we cover how this works in the music industry too.
I also think it is important that people are educated on all of their rights that have been trampled and attempted to be circumvented by the **AA's and their like kind organizations overseas. By all means we should show the **AA's support of taking away your rights for a fair trial if your accused of copyright infringement. Don't forget to educate people on treaties and what they have done to take away your rights by treaty.
Don't forget to cover public domain and the history of extending how long something will last before being put into public domain. We also need to show how this has changed over the years. Libraries, those bastions of piracy! They have the audacity to lend IP without people paying for them fresh every single time, let's make sure we cover the history of trying to shut down libraries abilities to do lend things.
Anything else that we should educate people on?
We have kifs coming out of highschool unable to balance a checkbook or figure out the amount of tax on a purchase... but please let's teach 'em this instead.
Teach them copyright law and use it as a proof of Intelligent Design.
May Peace Prevail On Earth
we can use the fox news view that is very GOP but they list Fair and balanced in the prom card.
...says the person with no kids...
...as it was originally designed (20-30, maybe even 40 years). Not this 110+ the lift of author business.
Religious people can opt-out their children when it comes to evolution and sex-education. Seems only fair that parents get the option to opt their children out of this unabashed intrusion of the classroom by media corporations. From an economic educational standpoint, I don't want my kids learning that having the right political connections can be used to compensate for a broken business model.
I'd hope the RIAA could find time to explain the economics of the industry. i.e. the chargebacks and other fun instruments used to lessen or entirely remove the need to pay royalties to artists. For additional credit, have the MPAA explain why high grossing films can make a loss because Paramount sent a cut of the revenues to the fucking moon.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
Great idea... as long as it's objective and based on science.
You know... explaining how copyright once just lasted only a handfull of years and how downloading movies and music doesn't actually hurt sales.
Perhaps the kids should also be educated in the danger giving up your privacy to phone-home Digital Restriction Management, how companies steal control over your computer just because you want to play a CD and how they no longer actually own the things they buy in a store.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
This is blatant indoctrination. China will be jealous.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The teaching of facts is morally neutral.
Sex education mostly teaches facts about male and female bodies, and how they function, the possibility of pregnancy and disease transmission, etc.
Whether or not three-ways are morally permissible is, as I understand, not discussed in such classes.
So, I don't really see what your problem is.
Same goes for climate change, and the fact that copyright infringement is illegal. These topics can be covered in a morally-neutral way.
How in the WORLD is advertising and propaganda being placed directly in public school curriculum?
I am sure this is not the first time propaganda has been pushed through elementary schools. There are tons of examples in various countries and regimes. And since it's that time of year again, let's tip our hats to the incredibly successful disinformation campaign of the Daughters of the American Revolution in creating our wonderful American Thanksgiving mythology (among many other similar myths).
Did I miss the nationwide campaign for elementary school level curriculum on the dangers of smoking? I seem to remember that being a part of Health in junior high... where you'd sort of expect it. If this followed that pattern, I'd expect to see this in within a class on Government in High School where patents, trademarks and copyright were debated alongside a treatment of historical patterns of dying industries using laws/regulations to postpone their demise rather than adapting.
Reading
Writing
Arithmetic
"Don't Copy That Floppy"
"Home Taping is Killing Music"
"When You Download Movies, You're Sucking Satan's Most Unholy of Cocks"
Trolling is a art,
all this crap does is pad the pockets of useless losers like Joe Lieberman without doing anything to stop piracy, if someone is too fucking cheap and/or poor to buy the movie on itunes for 8 bucks then fucking just let them have their fucking dvdrip, who cares
Why would you lump absolutely critical sex-ed, and accurate info on climate change in with an absurd piracy lesson? Do you identify with the ignorant religious conservatives?
Sex-ed isn't a moral lesson, it's a biology lesson. The people trying to remove it from schools, or make it a "moral" lesson, are generally totally unethical religious crazies who want to deprive kids of accurate info. The same folks want to put their superstitions in science class. We all have an obligation to never let religious extremists limit education. People who can't handle reality should not be passing along their dysfunction to the next generation.
teach elementary-age children about the value of copyrights
Since copyright has no value, and shouldn't exist, this course shouldn't take very long.
Says the person who knows nothing about the person he's replying to when spewing forth ad hominems.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Don't copy that floppy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up863eQKGUI
The student's grade, and the schools' grade are test-based. (The teacher's grade may be too, though that's still a bone of contention.) Until it's on the test (Common Core, in the current instance), where is the incentive to teach it?
At last we will be able to have honest discussion with our copyright overlords about topic such as:
- "Are you guys just trying to hold on your dying business model or what?"
- "If MP3 account for the most part of the music sale right now, wasn't it pretty much dumb to try to make mp3 players illegals back in the '90?"
- "Why the hell can't I get the damn TV on my computer yet?"
Unless of course nobody is allowed to ask questions during those classes... but they would never do something that is so bluntly against education, would they?
Teach kids how to read and write properly. Teach them to do math without a calculator. Geography, general culture, the works.
Your / You're
Would of
Its / It's
Heck, it's not even my native langage and it hurts my brain the way people write today...
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
History is written by the victors.
LMAO!
Time to change the name from Public Schools into a more accurate descriptor like Corporate Schools, no reason to hide that little fact anymore.
I, for one, support this. Just like DARE I suspect the message given will be "You kids shouldn't pirate movies, games, and music for free." And the message kids will receive is "You can get movies, music, and games for free!" After all, they don't don't care one bit if adults tell them not to swear, they do it all the time amongst themselves. Why should they care if adults tell them not to doing something else that's cool?
Couldn't we just photocopy the curriculum and return the original back to them? :-)
After all. It's only information...
Someone should fund the teaching of Free software and the horrors of patents.
Anyone?
damn...
Thou shalt not make non-destructive copies of electrons as they pass over the holy Internet.
That he has no kids is obvious. When he states who should and should not have kids. Its generally not so black and white when you are a parent. Your struggles simply beat it out of you.
What exactly are the dangers of piracy, aside from being sued into bankruptcy by these media assholes?
Unless they are talking about the type of piracy you do in a boat. In which case, yes, there are many dangers.
Capitalism was a fun experiment
Capitalism is not fool-proof.
Capitalism has a lot of faults in it
But compare Capitalism to Marxism, Capitalism still wins hands down
I am saying this based on my own experience - I was from a very Marxist-oriented country and the country turned from bad to worse under Marxism
Decades later, after that country started to adopt Capitalism, things began to start picking up
Now that country has the world's 2nd largest GDP
Yes, that country was China - and yes, I was from China - and please don't tell me how bad Capitalism is, because I can easily retort with real life disastrous examples of Marxism
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/09/18/1338249/riaas-elementary-school-copyright-curriculum
I expect this to be as effective as D.A.R.E. AKA, Drugs Are Really Exciting/Entertaining.
They tell kids: "Yeah, there's a bunch of free games, movies and music online but don't download it, that's a copyright violation!"
All they hear is: "There's a bunch of free games, movies and music online, blah blah blah!"
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
The industrial age brought a national need for the masses to all be educated the same in factories of basic knowledge to that they would all be interchangeable parts in the assembly lines. Education on the U.S. was not always done that way. Now that we are past that era, it's probably time to eliminate the idea of the "public school" with its cookie-cutter one-size-fits-all design and go back to where we started:
Parents are responsible for educating their kids. They can do it themselves (and many including those with special skills, trades, or businesses would) or they can have their religious schools do it, or they can select secular schools, or labor unions could run schools, etc. There's plenty of room for freedom and innovation if you break the mold of the modern unionized teachers and administrators jobs program which has no concern for the ultimate result of its labor (i.e. there's not accountability for the 4th grade teacher whose students later fail to graduate high school etc). There is no reason why a kid born today should go onto the K-12 track then 4yr college, then JOB..... an individual human being born today should learn at whatever pace he/she can, taking as few or as many years as needed, to learn the skills required to pursue whatever career he/she chooses - Perhaps 8 yrs home schooling and 3 as an apprentice to somebody in the field, then a career. Human beings are individuals and modern tech has made access to information cheap and ubiquitous. Continuing to funnel children, like some bulk raw material, into an obsolete education system where politically-active people (left or right, religious or secular, corporate or statist) use their influence to propagandize for some nebulous "greater good" (while failing to cover the basics) molding them into millions of mass-produced mediocre "products" is a bad idea.
But seriously, how about some equal time? I think one could make the case that in the interest of inclusion, pro-piracy curriculum should be included.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
if you can buy education today, you get your way tomorrow.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"Others contend it would use up valuable classroom time when U.S. public schools are already struggling to teach the basics."
link | link
The current state of affairs is that most average citizens (And apparently a good chunk of Congress) has absolutely no understanding of copyright law. Until that changes, running on a platform of reforming those laws is a non-starter. So let's teach the entire IP clusterfuck to the little rug rats; Copyright, Trademark and Patents from the moment they were conceived, how they've changed over the years and who benefits the most from them. Then perhaps there'll be some interest in changing the status quo in a generation or two.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
My subject line says it all.
An effective "democracy" creates the illusion the people have a say in their government.
You are pitching to kids who already know how to get around the school's firewalls....and think all video is "on demand" from "the internet"....
If there's one set of people I'm glad I didn't learn all my morality from, it's my parents.
I mean, some things they taught were brilliant. But a lot of what was going round in their heads... oh boy, anyone would think they were just a pair of average humans.
I read the "schoolbook" (8 pages or something) handed out to 15 year old schoolkids. It said:
1: you are only allowed to software if the owner has given permission. Look for pages where you are allowed to download.
2: some pages incorrectly claim it's ok to download from them. Avoid those pages.
There isn't really any additional info on how to tell websites of type 1 from type 2 meaning they should assume all of them to be of type 2? The schoolchildren wasn't able to tell the legal difference between the piratebay and sourceforge. My fear was confirmed when the said 15 year old blamed me for pirating GPL software.
I can't help wondering where steam is viewed by kids "educated" that way. After all that is also something you download.
The MPAA can tell them about the evils of piracy.
The NSA, Google, and Facebook can tell them about the evils of privacy.
The good thing about this coming up every time is that it serves as a reminder to everyone else (other than tied into the vested business interests of the copyright industry) to educate youths about the history of "copyright", where it was originally aimed at, and whether they believe it would be wrong to go out and publicly perform "Happy Birthday To You" without paying a royalty to Warner Music Group, and whether they believe it would be wrong to self-manufacture a copy of an old recording that has been out of print for over a decade.
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
Oh please. Not lining the pockets of the MPAA fatcats is about the only one I can think of. And really, who cares about them after the increasing amount of "Piracy is not a victimless crime" BS at the beginning of rental DVDs. Treat me like a criminal when I'm watching something I acquired through 100% legal means and I get kinda angry at the sad state of things.
It all starts with a pledge of allegiance...
There are plenty of ways to passive-aggressively protest state worship.
Ah, but open source software relies on the very same copyright laws to exist. Absent copyright, or more importantly, copyright enforcement, open source itself couldn't exist.
Absent copyright enforcement, copyleft would not exist in its present form, as everything would be under the equivalent of FreeBSD's license. But absent copyright enforcement, there would be no repercussions if someone with more time than money were to make and distribute a commented disassembly of some proprietary program.
That and even people who do create often find themselves sued. See, for example, George Harrison in Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music, who lost a million dollar lawsuit over having accidentally copied someone else's song.
What's new is old.. and old new..
http://youtu.be/up863eQKGUI
Remember kids, don't copy that floppy!
..don't panic
Kids are already coming out of school dumber than dirt. Why the hell waste their time with this shit?
That he has no kids is obvious.
The fact that he said something you don't agree with does not mean he has no kids. Not all parents are the same, and if you were a True Parent, you'd know that!
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Even if the curriculum did have some value, good luck in getting teachers to teach it. The second that the first student asks, "did you pirate this worksheet," the teacher decide never to teach it again.
(Note: since it's backed by the MPAA, I suspect that it is a highly distorted view of copyright and that the curriculum doesn't have value because of that. That said, copyright itself does have value.)
The sooner you show kids that others get music and movies for free, the better.
This reminds me of a list of banned sites (usually porn) we had at my university. It was a veeeery popular list and a great introduction to internet porn... :)
A buddy of mine mentioned this to me about a month ago. He say, what the MPAA was pushing on his kids in school. In addition, the schools are now saying the 2nd amendment is out dated, and it's not even being quoted correctly.
Smart parents are carefully reviewing the material, and correcting their kids when they get home.
Sending your kid to school,
getting them out of bed, making sure they have their uniforms on (which you've cleared the previous night if they came home dirty). Making them a cut lunch, and ensuring that they have whatever happens to be required that day at school (sports days / field trips etc). Then getting them to school on time, and picking them up on time afterwards.
then to football,
Most of the above applies here too. They need clean sports kit to play it, and need to be taken and brought back. Not to mention the emotional support and encouragement that's implicit it sending your kids to sports.
then letting him play videos games,
A trickier one, but from the use of the term 'letting', you could infer that an allotted time has been allocated to video games. Video games are not evil.
eat dinner,
Which you've prepared, and let us assume is a healthy and nutritious meal. Actually we missed out breakfast in the first point, so let's assume that this has also been prepared for the kid and is healthy and nutritious.
and go to bed.
At a reasonable hour, and only after you've read to them, made sure they've brushed their teeth.
is NOT being a parent.
Actually, most of that IS being a parent. As some of the replies to your rant have noted, it seems highly unlikely that you have any kids.
But this is more or less orthogonal to your main point, which is that morality should not be educated. A peculiar idea. Morality, right from wrong, must be taught to children by their parents and their school. How could a school avoid teaching right from wrong? Would you expect a school to ignore lying, bullying, cheating, stealing, etc etc? Or would you expect the school to make it clear that such behaviour is unacceptable?
The reasoning behind indefinite copyright. How it ruins society and goes against every moral decency.
The good news is that i've already educated my kids on absolute corruption - and I started with the MPAA and RIAA, and added Disney for good measure.
Stick that up your pipe and smoke it!
The MPAA and RIAA are thinking of the children a little too much here. Maybe we should put their executives on some kind of list...
So the MPAA will have to be able to not only talk, but also illustrate the idea to the children. Good luck. Because the children are already being primed to understand things like addition/subtraction and multiplication/division in real-world ways. It's going to be hard to lay into them about how it's theft (subtraction) when they'll know that it's really copies being made (multiplication). Besides these kids have parents that will be able to attend the public stage at the school that the MPAA takes to talk to the kids (at least this is always the case at my kids' school - because the principal is the shizzle) and will be able to ask questions/give comments.
In other news, is music these days even worth buying? Is this a last-attempt for the MPAA? I keep waiting for it...
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
Now here is what you should not do...
LAUSD kids hacked their iPads the day they were given to them. It just doesn't get old, like this article reprint.
...anyone know where I can snag a copy of their 'curriculum'? :P
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
With the music composed by the easy listening styles of Metallica of course...
Some of us still remember the whole Napster thing.
I'm not after 100% accuracy, and that should be fairly clear. But I'm not about to give credit to an opinion that reeks of ignorance either. For all practical purposes, the original poster does not have any significant insight in to having children. The only insight presented is a myth. The chances of both traits being of someone who does have kids would be low, I'd imagine.
I'm not after 100% accuracy
I don't think you're after anything close to it. You're just arbitrarily deciding that certain things mean that someone isn't a True Parent. I guess anyone who isn't as 'enlightened' as you isn't a True Parent, as all parents have the exact same experiences and opinions.
Probably obvious, but I posted that.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
You keep sayings "True Parent" like I magically know what the fuck youre on about. One is a parent or not. You bringing up elitist bullshit just to argue against isnt all that clever.