Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: How Do I Explain Copyright To My Kids?
orgelspieler writes: My son paid for a copy of a novel on his iPad. When his school made it against the rules to bring iPads, he wanted to get the same book on his Kindle. I tried to explain that the format of his eBook was not readily convertible to the Kindle. So he tried to go on his schools online library app. He checked it out just fine, but ironically, the offline reading function only works on the now-disallowed iPads. Rather than paying Amazon $7 for a book I already own, and he has already checked out from the library, I found a bootleg PDF online. I tried to explain that he could just read that, but he freaked out. "That's illegal, Dad!" I tried to explain format shifting, and the injustice of the current copyright framework in America. Even when he did his own research, stumbling across EFF's website on fair use, he still would not believe me.
Have any of you fellow Slashdotters figured out a good way to navigate the moral, legal, and technological issues of copyright law, as it relates to the next generation of nerds? Interestingly, my boy seems OK with playing old video games on the Wayback Machine, so I don't think it's a lost cause.
Have any of you fellow Slashdotters figured out a good way to navigate the moral, legal, and technological issues of copyright law, as it relates to the next generation of nerds? Interestingly, my boy seems OK with playing old video games on the Wayback Machine, so I don't think it's a lost cause.
The most important skill and experience you take away from public school is the ability to deal with the public.
Homeschooled kids lose out on that big time, and no, your church, sports, and social field trips you organize with other homeschooled kids is not a substitute.
If you are worried about the education get a tutor and do some homework with the kid, but 8 hours a day learning reading, writing, social studies, math, and science from Mom & Dad doesn't prepare them for any sort of real world.
And don't forget that you brainwash your kids too, just with the ideas and beleifs you hold. Public school for all its flaws, exposes them to other ideas, some good, some bad... and frankly the fact that he is intelligently debating with his kid about the ethics of copyright is probably the best possible outcome.
The most important skill and experience you take away from public school is the ability to deal with the public.
Homeschooled kids lose out on that big time
Can you cite any evidence that this is true? With five minutes of googling I located research that found homeschoolers equally or slightly better socialized, according to several different metrics, and none that found they were worse.