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.

Comments

What's the problem?

[Motard]

Perhaps your son should explain copyright to you.

Re:What's the problem?

[DontBeAMoran]

It's easy, it's in the freakin' name: the right to make a copy.

A fixed number of years after publishing, giving time authors to earn money for their work, we are legally allowed to make copies.

Just because Hollywood and others corrupted the system and killed the spirit of the original law doesn't mean it vanished from the core idea of copyright.

Re:What's the problem?

[Ichijo]

It's easy, it's in the freakin' name: the right to make a copy.

This isn't about making a copy, it's more like downloading the Blu-Ray version of a movie that you have on DVD. They may seem similar, but the one is not a copy of the other.

Re:What's the problem?

[pnutjam]

Yeah, the real travesty is he's giving the kid a PDF copy (worst ebook format ever). When he could easily format shift with calibre, maybe after stripping some DRM.

Re:What's the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

The original agreement was for 14 years. Then they reneged on that and extended it and keep extending it with no signs of ever stopping, without giving anything to the public in return for the extension.

So from my perspective, anything over 14 years is fair game and ethical.

Re:What's the problem?

[mark-t]

No. Copyright is the right to *control* who may make copies. It is an artificial extension of the natural right that would have existed if the creator had never published it in the first place, and a public concession to respect copyright is required in order for it to work as intended, so that theoretically, creators rely on copyright to protect their works for some finite amount of tune and the general public is enriched by the infusion of creative works, instead of publishers resorting to self censorship to protect their interests that they might otherwise do in absence of copyright, DRM, by the way, is a perfect example of a modern form of self censorship that can arise when creators lose confidence in copyright alone.

Re:What's the problem?

[DontBeAMoran]

How nice of you to quote my whole post and yet ignore the beginning of the second sentence to write yours.

But it's true that in this case we have no information about the year of publication of the book, however the father of the kid already paid for said book.

Re:What's the problem?

[DontBeAMoran]

Oups, indeed that's a huge part of the whole idea.

Re:What's the problem?

[DontBeAMoran]

You forgot half the part of the idea. The authors are given that right in exchange for others not having that right but only for a limited time.

Copyright is the right to control who may make copies for a limited time.

Re:What's the problem?

[Kevin108]

If you have paid for a copy, format shifting is fair. Imagine it this way: an artist created a digital photo you liked, and you purchased a copy of his JPG, but wanted it in PNG. There is nothing wrong with changing formats of the copy you already licensed.

Re:What's the problem?

[ShanghaiBill]

I'm happy for pirates making copies for distribution and profit to go to jail

That is just stupid. Copyright is a civil offence, and should be punished by fines, not jail time. America already imprisons four times as many people per capita as other countries. We don't need to start imprisoning even more people just for photocopying.

copies and format shifting for personal use _should_ be completely legal in all countries.

I see. So if I burn a DVD for myself, that would be perfectly legal, but if I make an extra copy for a friend I go to prison ... even though it would be perfectly legal for my friend to make his own copy?

Re:What's the problem?

[arglebargle_xiv]

Even when he did his own research, stumbling across EFF's website on fair use, he still would not believe me.

Your son has all the makings of a fine upstanding citizen-unit. Obey, Consume, Conform, Submit, Marry and reproduce, No independent thought. Buy, Watch TV. Do not question authority.

Re:What's the problem?

[mark-t]

I'm not sure if you're subtly pointing out how I mistyped "time" as "tune", or if you thought I didn't mention it.

Re:What's the problem?

[Jane Q. Public]

The problem is that people incorrectly conflate DRM with copyright. For the most part they have nothing to do with each other.

Re:What's the problem?

[Solandri]

The problem here isn't copyright or fair use or public domain or the (lack of) right to make a copy. The problem is the copyright holders not holding up their end of the copyright bargain.

They claim we're we're not literally buying their work, we're only buying a license to view their work. So we can't make copies for our friends. That's all fine and good. But if all we're buying is a license, then buying the iPad version should also entitle you to the Kindle version; and in fact all other versions. There is absolutely no reason for someone to have to buy multiple licenses for the same thing. The copyright holders are reneging on their end of the copyright licensing bargain in order to try to sell you multiple copies of the same license.

That's what's confusing the kid about this situation. Logically it's so simple that a child gets it. The copyright holders don't. A lot of adults are also confused about this because of they've been hoodwinked by copyright holders for decades. Remember upgrading your record collection, to cassette tape, to CD? Or how about VHS to DVD to Blu-Ray? Did the copyright holders offer you a free or discounted upgrade (like the software industry does)? No, they trained you to go out and pay full price for another license to stuff you already owned a license for.

Re:What's the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

... Marry and reproduce, No independent thought.

Indeed, copyright will teach him much about dating. Every time he gets a new device/girlfriend, he will have to buy licences from scratch: Books and movies, or sex and time with his mates. Furthermore, he must learn the dilemmas presented by EULAs and meeting the parents. To continue, he must be educated on the dangers of loot-boxes and pregnancies.

Re:What's the problem?

[fafalone]

Format shifting is fair use no matter how hard the RIAA/MPAA tries to complain about it and interfere with it, especially on the moral principle side. The posters bigger problem seems to be that his son is unable to recognize that concept, where the letter of the law is manifestly unjust.

Re:What's the problem?

[Ichijo]

Sometimes the DVD has special features that aren't on the Blu Ray, so the information on the Blu Ray is is not necessarily a strict superset of that on the DVD. The only way to be sure that your copy is an exact copy or strict subset of the original is to make the copy yourself.

Re:What's the problem?

[Cederic]

. But if all we're buying is a license, then buying the iPad version should also entitle you to the Kindle version; and in fact all other versions.

Welcome to the insidious stupidity of licensing. You've clearly licensed the work for the iPad and not for the Kindle. That's a separate licence.

The problem here isn't copyright or fair use or public domain or the (lack of) right to make a copy. The problem is the copyright holders not holding up their end of the copyright bargain.

The problem is the current copyright regime. The copyright holders are complying with the law, which is all they're expected to do.

Change the law.

Re:What's the problem?

[jellomizer]

I tend to agree. Why is the iPad disallowed while other tablets are fine?
Is the stereo typical public school “IT Director” just an Android fan and an Apple hater?

That seems to be the biggest issue, then trying to teach your kid on how to cheat the system.

I am willing to bet if the publisher wanted to sue you for getting a pdf from the black market copy of something you bought. They could probably win, however it probably just isn’t worth it.

Re:What's the problem?

[jellomizer]

Yea, the kid should shut up and listen to his dad.
Being the fact that he questioned the legality of the action shows he is critically thinking about the problem and weighing the proposed solution.

Re:What's the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes yes yes - format shift is fair use - but that is not happening here!

They bought a book, but it only works on the iPad he can't bring to school. Format shifting to kindle is fair use, but they apparently don't know how to do that. So they found a bootleg copy on the internet. That is illegal.

Paper analogy: I buy a book. The writing is too small for my eyes. I can copy it onto A3 paper (legal format shift) which would suit me. But I didn't have my book with me at the copy shop, so I copied from someones bootleg copy instead.

It is fair use if you copy from your own legal copy. I don't think "any copy of the same work" qualifies.

Re:What's the problem?

[jellomizer]

Actually the parent post was posted with an Apple product. But if you check the time, I think I posted it without thinking or being awake. I didn't even remember that I posted that comment.

Re:What's the problem?

[Gr8Apes]

Funny admission, all my stuff is posted via Apple or Linux as well. However, grammar/spellcheck is disabled across all devices because that's easier than training each one for my specific usage, of which /. is a minor minor part.

Re:What's the problem?

[Gr8Apes]

So they found a bootleg copy on the internet. That is illegal.

Actually it isn't illegal, what is is the person that posted the illegal copy. Check your copyright law, it pertains to creating and distributing copies. Not buying/obtaining one.

Re:What's the problem?

[Cajun Hell]

They claim we're we're not literally buying their work, we're only buying a license to view their work. .. But if all we're buying is a license, then buying the iPad version should also entitle you to the Kindle version; and in fact all other versions.

No, because the whole reason they want to stop selling copies and start licensing instead, is to be able to deny you the kindle version. They want a second monetary transaction for that. If you start putting terms into the license, like "needs to be readable on everything" you undermine the entire purpose of licensing!

If you want to be able to read your book on multiple devices, you should be buying, not licensing. Or if they won't let you buy, then just pirate it.

Remember upgrading your record collection, to cassette tape, to CD? Or how about VHS to DVD to Blu-Ray? Did the copyright holders offer you a free or discounted upgrade (like the software industry does)? No, they trained you to go out and pay full price for another license to stuff you already owned a license for.

Waitaminute. I won't deny that some things are licensed, but those are all definitely examples of copies that you bought, not licensed. (Can you actually link to a seller of those things, making a claim that theirs is licensed?) AFAIK every single cassette tape and CD is bought, not licensed, and the same goes for all VHS tapes, DVDs and Blu-rays. You don't license those; those are available retail without any contracts.

The book in his example, though, obtained though an online store where you really might have communicated acceptance of a contract, is what this whole licensing thing is about. And like I said, you should be declining those types of offers.

Re: What's the problem?

[Zero__Kelvin]

What you have is already a copy. It doesn't matter what copy you make the copy from. This is also why it is impossible to determine if a P2P download is copyright infringement. If I buy a CD and then choose to download an mp3 of a song from the CD rather than rip it that is completely legal, as I have purchased the rights, not the bits.

Re:What's the problem?

[The Last Gunslinger]

Your son has all the makings of a fine upstanding citizen-unit. Obey, Consume, Conform, Submit, Marry and reproduce, No independent thought. Buy, Watch TV. Do not question authority.

Yep, this was my first thought after reading OP. Dad is failing his responsibility to engender independent thought in his offspring.

Re:What's the problem?

[Sloppy]

As an author, if I publish to iBooks or to Kindle or whatever, I have absolutely zero control over how their technical platform works. As an author I would want to be able to format shift.
 
So it's not the copyright holders (me) it's the technology gatekeepers -- apple, amazon, etc.

Hi. I'd like to point out something about that very situation, where authors have a lot of power that they aren't using. And it's interesting to see your attitude here, because it means you could (and perhaps should?) use this power.

As you know, these platforms have included technological measures that are intended to work against the interests of the customer. (People really shouldn't be buying these devices!) DRM is why it's hard to take a book off one and put it on another. And it's illegal for people to circumvent DRM.

That's where you come in. You don't have control over how their technical platform works, but you do have some control over how their legal platform works. Their attack on customers is an integrated approach where those two weapons are used together, but the author can make it so that it's not illegal to crack the DRM.

DMCA 1201(a)(3)(A) defines circumvention:

to "circumvent a technological measure" means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner

Emphasis mine on those last seven words.

If you (and I really mean you, the author; you have a very special position here) authorize your customers to break the DRM, then those customers will not be circumventing. They can legally crack the DRM and do whatever it takes to migrate their books between devices. They can talk about doing it, and how to it, in public. If someone accuses them of violating DMCA, they can point at a statement from you that authorizes it, which causes many of the prohibitions in DMCA to become irrelevant.

It doesn't get the job done (there's still cracking to be done) but it helps, especially from a legal angle in USA.

But it only works if you, the copyright holder, have made such a statement. Think about it.

Re: What's the problem?

[david_thornley]

That's one reason why the Pirate Bay-stile prosecutions have focused on uploading rather than downloading. Downloading isn't automatically illegal, for several reasons. Uploading is generally illegal, since you can't possibly know that those getting the uploads are justified.

Re:What's the problem?

[david_thornley]

And I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that format-shifting hurts no one.

Re:What's the problem?

[orgelspieler]

Worst. Soviet Russia joke. EVAR!

Re:What's the problem?

[Dread_ed]

It hurts the lawyers who defend and prosecute those cases. It hurts the courts who make fees off of the cases. Piracy has all sorts of negative economic effects. Report a friend today and do your job for society.

Too late

[Orgasmatron]

You started too late. You should have taught him what you wanted him to know before his teachers taught him what the RIAA and MPAA wanted him to know.

Also, you didn't format shift it, you downloaded it, and that download was not fair use.

The good news is that I don't think you did anything illegal. Copyright infringement involves making a copy without a license to make copies, which you did not do, and could not do, since you didn't have a copy in the first place.

Now, if you made a copy of the copy you downloaded, that might be something you could be sued for. But it isn't illegal unless you are making unlicensed copies commercially.

Re:Too late

[sjames]

If you already have a copy, and then download a copy in another form, it is CONSTRUCTIVELY a format shift. It might take a good lawyer to make that stick, of course.

Re:Too late

[Orgasmatron]

My understanding is that they were uploading. Some of them possibly "settled" when they got the extortion letter. If there is a court case showing a ruling on a pure downloader, please cite it for me. I haven't heard of one.

Re:Too late

[Orgasmatron]

The last time I did any serious research on this, that notion was accepted but hadn't ever been tested. Since it is the basis of trillions of dollars worth of economic activity, it is unlikely that any court could ever issue a sane ruling on the topic.

It is a farce. Such a scheme is not compatible with copyright as the framers understood it. Holding a book up to a mirror is just as much a copy as charging some capacitors, and just as much not what anyone could have meant by "copy" in copyright.

Re:Too late

[91degrees]

That's what he did say. That you can be sued for making copies (which the P2P users were).

Now, I believe he's mistaken when he says it's not illegal, but clearly he means it's not a criminal matter, but a civil one, so it's a mistake in terminology.

Re:Too late

[orgelspieler]

I'm aware the download was not format shifting, nor would it be considered fair use (entire text was in the PDF). My understanding is that downloading a bootleg copy may or may not be illegal, depending on interpretation. Format shift and fair use were just parts of the over-arching conversation I was having with him. Specifically, I told him the person who made the PDF available online was probably in danger of getting sued.

I guess I wasn't aware that my kids teachers were even talking about copyright with them. I have had a pretty close relationship with most of them, and it seems like I would have seen some inkling sooner. I can't think of any advertising campaigns put out by RIAA or MPAA recently, and I doubt that he would associate that with books and PDFs, either. Who knows.

He's a good kid with a good heart. I'm just going to have to let him blaze his own path and make his own decisions on these gray areas.

Re:Too late

[Anubis IV]

This is a common misconception. The commercial or non-commercial nature of one's copying is not relevant to copyright per se, and is only one of several tests used when a Fair Use defense is invoked.

Actually, you're talking about different things and you're both right about your respective topics.

The stuff he was talking about has little to do with copyright. He was talking about stripping copy protections, and he's quite correct that the DMCA says it's illegal (i.e. a criminal activity) to bypass copy protection mechanisms. In fact, according to the DMCA, it's illegal regardless of whether you engage in copyright infringement after bypassing the protection. He was arguing that it shouldn't be considered a criminal activity to do so for non-commercial use (e.g. format shifting), and I quite agree with him.

In contrast, you're talking about whether the distinction between commercial and non-commercial has an impact on determining whether a copyright violation has occurred in the first place, and you're quite correct in saying that it doesn't matter much. That said, it may matter if it's clear that you engaged in copyright infringement and it's time to determine whether you'll be going to civil or criminal court, since large-scale commercial infringement can easily be treated as a criminal activity.

Idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

He's not incorrect. Two wrongs don't make a right. It seems like you want to do the right thing and pay for the book but you still got the book from an illegitimate source. If you were to take the Kindle or schools version and convert to PDF, there you have done a format shift. The problem is that TOS of those services probably prohibits converting to PDF, or even if it doesn't it is probably encrypted to protect the book. Defeating the encryption is circumvention that would be against the DMCA. So, he is correct and you just need to man up and not make excuses for your actions when you know they are wrong. People download illegal copies of books and music, get over it, but don't try to build a house around the excuse of why you did it.

Re:Idiot

[viperidaenz]

Yeah, he should pay over and over again for the same content for every device he wants to use it on.
Because downloading something you already have a license for is illegal. (arguably, depending on the technology used to obtain it, downloading the copy isn't illegal, it's the person running the server that is)
Because circumventing copy protections to make a legitimate format shift is illegal. Not because you made a copy though, That's perfectly legal.

Re:Idiot

[orgelspieler]

Ah, so you subscribe to the illegal=wrong belief system. I can see a certain simplicity in that logic, but in this case it is not clear that downloading an illegal PDF is in itself illegal. To me, scaring a 10 year old out of $7 is wrong, even though it's legal. Did you know that reading a book out loud to a classroom full of kids is a public performance of the work, and is technically a violation of copyright law? Does that make it immoral?

Re:Idiot

[david_thornley]

not make excuses for your actions when you know they are wrong.

You started off pointing out possible illegal actions. You never discussed the morality. Now, after completely failing to address "right" and "wrong", you conclude that the person with the issue was in the wrong, as opposed to potentially violating the law. Unless you're going to maintain that violating the law in even trivial ways is always wrong, and that's a completely separate argument, you have no grounds for a moral judgment.

Re:Idiot

[Dread_ed]

"Did you know that reading a book out loud to a classroom full of kids is a public performance of the work, and is technically a violation of copyright law? "

The internet says you are wrong. A lot. Like a whole bunch.

One thing said this:
"Unlike academic coursepacks, other copyrighted materials can be used without permission in certain educational circumstances under copyright law or as a fair use. “Fair use” is the right to use portions of copyrighted materials without permission for purposes of education, commentary, or parody."

Another stuff said this thing:
"Face-to-face teaching – Section 110(1)

Allows performance or display of protected material in a face-to-face teaching setting.

Must be in a classroom and at a non-profit educational institution.

Does NOT allow copying. This is an exception to the exclusive rights of performance and display, but not the right of reproduction.

Copying may still be allowed by fair use, however.

Performance and display in the classroom must employ a legally obtained copy – no “bootleg” copy is eligible for this exception, but borrowed copies are OK."

There's lots more them things and stuffs.

Re:Idiot

[orgelspieler]

While I really love the sarcasm, the answer is not as clear cut as you think it is. A simple Google search simply cannot reveal all the answers, especially with something as byzantine as copyright law. Specifically, I was talking about somebody who is not a teacher (so 110(1) doesn't apply) at a PTO fundraiser (so not educational). 110(4)B might apply, which is crazy because apparently the impetus is on the copyright owner in this case to notify the performer. (Interestingly, this would seem to apply to most church choirs, but many of them get license agreements anyway. Maybe because so many of them stream services or upload to Youtube these days)

You shouldn't have to be a copyright lawyer to know whether you're breaking the law.

You need to figure out something else first

[berj]

You need to figure out why your son is a better person and more respectful of peoples' copyrights than you are.

Or.. as someone earlier posited: Maybe you should ask your son to explain copyrights to you.

Re:You need to figure out something else first

[Anonymous Coward]

The kid paid for a novel and isn't allowed to read it on the device of his choice.

There's no God-given right to read someone's commercially marketed novel on the device of your choice. If you don't like the device lock-in being offered by an author, don't buy their book.

Re:You need to figure out something else first

[RightwingNutjob]

Paper books are better. Complaining about vendor lock-in isn't. Caveat emptor.

Re:You need to figure out something else first

[berj]

Why would you expect him to be able to read it on any device he chooses? He paid for a license to read it on particular devices. If one wants more then one needs to pay more.

Besides.. the fact that he can't read it on his iPad is a school problem, not a person who sold him the book problem.

Re:You need to figure out something else first

[WrongMonkey]

There is no God-given right prevent your work from being copied, either. In the US, copyright is founded on Article 1, Section 8, clause 8 of the Constitution. “To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” If we determine that copyright laws are not in harmony with promoting science and art, we are justified in overturning those laws.

Re:You need to figure out something else first

[berj]

Paper books aren't definitively better, not by a long shot.

When I want to read paper books on my 1 month vacation to a remote island in the south pacific I have to lug them around with me. They take up space and add weight even when I'm done with them.

With digital books I can bring my entire library with me on my iPad and read whatever and whenever I want. And if I manage to find good Wifi somewhere I can even buy more books.

I've done trips both ways (lugging paper books around and downloading a ton of reading material to my iPad) and the latter is infinitely more preferable.

Aside from some special books I like to keep in my collection, I've transferred my entire library to digital and I couldn't be happier. I think the big "a ha" moment came for me shortly after I bought a kindle a decade ago. I ended up getting stuck in an airport overnight after a missed connection. Everything was closed. I was able to buy a book right on the spot to read while I waited for the first flight of the morning.

With rare exceptions I haven't bought a paper book since.

Re:You need to figure out something else first

[berj]

Sure.. overturn the law. But that's not what the dad was doing. He was just violating copyright and whining when his son (correctly) called him on it.

Re:You need to figure out something else first

[WrongMonkey]

There is some precedent for disobeying unjust laws.

Re:You need to figure out something else first

[berj]

Rosa Parks this dad ain't

Re:You need to figure out something else first

[lilrobbie]

So you have a threshold? The law must be at least X much unjust before you should disobey it?

Re:You need to figure out something else first

[lilrobbie]

I feel a bit like you've bought into this whole copyright protection racket, hook, line & sinker.

Rather than looking at the holistic intent of copyright and it's relationship with society (i.e., to increase creativity by allowing authors a guaranteed income stream for a specific amount of time), you're view the thing as if it is absolutely and irrefutably defined and controlled by the current, pretty one-sided licenses being attached to things by aggressive multinationals.

We as a group chose to allow and enforce copyright on our population because we saw it as important for allowing creative types to live. Is that still happening, when the majority of the money you pay for an item now go to the gatekeeping distributors and channels, rather than the individuals producing the actual content you consume?

Something that has gotten lost in Hollywood's attempts to build a sustainable business out of rehashing the same IP forever is that it is a PRIVILEGE to have your copyright & license enforced by society. Copyright was never a guarantee to be able to live off a single release forever. In fact, it was originally designed to NOT encourage that... you want great artists to still have incentive to produced great art, which they don't have if they are set for life off a single item.

Finally, it is a very naive to imagine that simply not buying something is still an effective form of protest today, when your taxes get fed into increasing the regulatory capture these companies have achieved. I don't agree with straight-out piracy... but I am vehemently against the idea that it's reasonable for someone to sell you a for a piece of music or literature and have any say about how you use that privately.

Re: You need to figure out something else first

[Reverend Green]

Respect for copyright is like respect for kicking puppies. It makes you a morally BAD person.

Re:You need to figure out something else first

[berj]

How the hell did you get that from what I wrote?!

Re:You need to figure out something else first

[lilrobbie]

How the hell did you get that from what I wrote?!

See:

Sure.. overturn the law. But that's not what the dad was doing. He was just violating copyright and whining when his son (correctly) called him on it.

Rosa Parks this dad ain't

It seems you judge this behaviour as not civil disobedience. Why is that? The best explanation I can come up with is that you are comparing the law the dad is protesting to the law Rosa Parks protested, and judging the father's actions as not sufficiently important? I don't really understand your point there to be honest...

Care to explain what Rosa Parks has to do with anything...?

Re:You need to figure out something else first

[rhazz]

I've transferred my entire library to digital

I suspect "transferred" is not the correct term for what you did ;)

Re:You need to figure out something else first

[orgelspieler]

Are you implying that a 10 year old should be technically and legally savvy enough to be able to read Apple's terms of service and agree to those terms?

Re:You need to figure out something else first

[Sloppy]

There's no God-given right to read someone's commercially marketed novel on the device of your choice. If you don't like the device lock-in being offered by an author, don't buy their book.

There's also no God-given right to deny anyone the ability to read the novel they bought on the device of their choice.

Since the gods provide no guidance on this matter, we'll have to make some decisions ourselves. What do we want?

Re:You need to figure out something else first

[david_thornley]

your son is a better person

Non sequitur. You have absolutely no basis to conclude that. You don't even know for sure that what the father did was illegal (it's at least arguably fair use).

Re:You need to figure out something else first

[david_thornley]

He paid for a license to read it on particular devices

Got any support for that statement? According to the ToS on my Nook, the ebooks I buy are mine. I don't know exactly what Amazon was selling, and it's a pretty safe bet that you don't know either. By making assumptions like that, you are in effect shilling for the copyright mafia.

Re:You need to figure out something else first

[berj]

Bingo!

It's not about the specific law being broken. I'm talking about this particular guy's response to this issue, as raised by his child, of all people.

Re:You need to figure out something else first

[Dread_ed]

He's exactly what our corporate/government amalgamation wants, namely a cash bag that will vote for and willingly participate in it's own economic destruction.

If berj and our corporate dickwads have their way we will all be wearing FMRI helmets connected to Apple pay wallets. When you think of anything copyrighted your account will be debited for the full cost of the work in question. Your wetware is just another platform, after all. You don't just get to use the work in question on any platform you want, peasant! Pay up or face destruction of the rest of your life through the "justice" system.

Re:You need to figure out something else first

[Rande]

How quickly we forget. The same publishers who want to restrict your ability to format shift and never want copyright to expire also complained about public libraries cutting into their profits.
Why would anyone buy a book when they could simply borrow it from a library!

Start with the US Constitution

[erice]

It's actually pretty brief and clear:

Article I Section 8. Clause 8 – Patent and Copyright Clause of the Constitution. [The Congress shall have power] “To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”

Re:Start with the US Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

Article I Section 8. Clause 8 – Patent and Copyright Clause of the Constitution. [The Congress shall have power] “To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”

This is theft. No fucking way do you hold the copyright on that document.

Re:Start with the US Constitution

[eddeye]

It's actually pretty brief and clear: Article I Section 8. Clause 8 â" Patent and Copyright Clause of the Constitution. [The Congress shall have power] âoeTo promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.â

Which tells you precisely nothing. The Constitution gives a very clear and concise motivational statement. Copyright is anything but. It's a highly negotiated morass of rules and exceptions and exceptions to exceptions catering to a multitude of special interests. It's the very definition of legislative bargaining.

You won't find anything that looks like a principle or rational public policy in copyright law. Just carve out after carve out, built on the lobbying power of each interest.

A good way to explain it to his son is Empire Strikes Back. Evil rules the universe. The good guys jump from one disaster to another, constantly on the run and getting picked apart. They can't catch a break.

Re: Start with the US Constitution

[Ungrounded Lightning]

woosh

"whoosh" does not apply to unflagged alleged sarcasm when it's exactly the argument some people make seriously.

On the internet nobody can tell you're being sarcastic.

Re:Start with the US Constitution

[Subm]

Then follow up with The Right to Read by Richard Stallman for how it's evolving.

Re: Start with the US Constitution

[William Baric]

This is theft. No fucking way do you hold the copyright on that document.

The question you should ask yourself is : the word "document" in this sentence refers to which document?

Re:Start with the US Constitution

[orgelspieler]

I had forgotten the name of that story. I read it many years ago. Thanks.

Better Idea...

[avandesande]

Teach them how to use a VPN

Concise.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ask Slashdot: How Do I Explain Copyright To My Kids?

Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!

iPad vs Kindle

[cob666]

I'm still trying to figure out why your kid's school doesn't allow them to bring an iPad to school but will let them bring a Kindle...

Re:iPad vs Kindle

[viperidaenz]

Probably got sick of kids playing angry birds in class and passing around nudes of classmates.

Re:iPad vs Kindle

[orgelspieler]

I wish it were that simple. His Kindle is a Kindle Fire. Let's just hope they don't figure out those can play games, too. LOL

Re:iPad vs Kindle

[RockDoctor]

Same here. I don't get it.

If the school has a rule against distracting or dangerous devices (e.g. tablets, still /or video cameras, electric shock devices), then that's fine ; apply it to all devices in that class, not to particular brands (e.g. both Uncle Joe's Cattle Prods and Tazer Inc. Kil-o-Zap are banned).

If the school requires homework to be submitted by email from a school account only accessible by a Kandle whose MAC is recognised and allowed onto the school's network, then that's fine, and the school supplies the device, software, and backup services.

But arbitrarily banning one brand of a wide class of devices - nope there is something rotten there.

A few things

[ClickOnThis]

First, count your blessings that you have a son who respects rules, even perhaps in this case when he really doesn't have to.

Second, call the school and complain that it's mega-stupid that they disallow iPads when their own online library app allows you to check out books in the iPad-supported format.

Third, although you may be able to make your own legal copy, can you get someone else's bootleg copy and call it legal? Seems to me that that was Napster's business model. Where are they now?

Re:A few things

[Anonymous Coward]

These are good suggestions. As a copyright lawyer, I'd add:

Fourth, do not, as a layperson, try to teach another layperson anything about copyright. Nobody actually understands this stuff, nobody has read a recent case in the field, and nobody can keep straight any sound legal advice from what they read on places like slashdot. Then proceed to do what you want, as nobody goes after the little fish.

Re:A few things

[stephanruby]

Second, call the school and complain that it's mega-stupid that they disallow iPads when their own online library app allows you to check out books in the iPad-supported format.

Venting to the school staff is not going to change anything. Besides, the kid is messing with his dad a little.

Interestingly, my boy seems OK with playing old video games on the Wayback Machine...

This is not a contradiction.

Most kids understand the spirit of rules and that rules can have many layers to them.

To explore this point, the dad just needs to give his kid the choice and tell him that since he doesn't want to bring the perfectly legally purchased format-shifted pdf ebook to school, he'll just have to read the entire book at home before it's covered in class. Then, the dad just needs to have him sit at the kitchen table and make him start reading it right then.

That's it. I guarantee you that the kid will change his mind real fast. At that point, when the kid changes his mind, the dad needs to play the devil's advocate and say "Are you sure? I wouldn't want you to compromise your morals because you find it inconvenient. Why do you think you're allowed to bring that PDF on your Kindle to school? "

Then, if the kid is old enough, the dad could even reinforce the lesson a little. "Are you sure? I don't find your argument convincing. Can you go on Google and find some sources for backing up what you're saying. "

Re:A few things

[emilycole86641]

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Re:A few things

[ET3D]

Venting to the school staff is not going to change anything.

It's this defeatism that makes America great.

Re:A few things

[orgelspieler]

That's scary that even a copyright lawyer thinks nobody can understand this stuff.

Re:A few things

[William Baric]

One of the first thing I learned during the initial training of my military service is that we should never blindly obey an order or a rule.

Re:A few things

[orgelspieler]

It's a "for fun" book. He burns through about 100 books a year. A lot of peer pressure in this school to read. It's fascinating to watch. We hit the local library during the summer, otherwise he gets twitchy. His little sister is picking up the same reading habits. I count myself lucky.

Complain to the school

[mysidia]

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.

Well, that is totally unreasonable and there might even be some legal cause of action there. That ONE kind of eBook-reader should be disallowed but not another that was previously allowed. Time to contact someone who can do things at the school, make the complaint, and such, Or pull the kid from that school and send them somewhere that doesn't have a Luddite administration.

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.

Arguing that you feel the current legal framework is unfair is not the way to make someone believe you, now is it?

Well, Technically it is a gray area. If you own the print copy of the book you can use a version that someone else scanned or converted to PDF and gave to you, and it's likely claimable fair use for you to use the extra copy for your own personal usage only ---- Any person who uploaded or shared the bootleg version probably did something illegal, but not you.

My suggestion would be to get advice from an attorney.... then you can tell your kid "Copyright law has some complicated exceptions called fair use, and only a professional lawyer is qualified to fully advise on a defensible position for certain actions; Upon the advise from my lawyer I am legally in the clear (or not) to download and use a bootleg copy of the same book I already purchased for my own personal use, as long as I don't further redistribute, share it, or copy it.".

Re:Complain to the school

[orgelspieler]

Well, that is totally unreasonable and there might even be some legal cause of action there. That ONE kind of eBook-reader should be disallowed but not another that was previously allowed. Time to contact someone who can do things at the school, make the complaint, and such, Or pull the kid from that school and send them somewhere that doesn't have a Luddite administration.

My boy pointed out that the likely outcome from such a complaint would be a complete electronics ban, rather than a relaxation of the new rule. Smart kid.

As for your other comments, I suspect describing it as a gray area was enough to set off alarm bells for him in the first place. He's had a very strong bent towards Lawful ever since he was 2 or 3. Chaotic is beyond the pale for him. I've tried to explain civil disobedience, but he pointed out copyright law really isn't on par with the civil rights movement.

I hate getting outsmarted by a 10 year old.

Re:Complain to the school

[mysidia]

My boy pointed out that the likely outcome from such a complaint would be a complete electronics ban, rather than a relaxation of the new rule.

So you formulate the complaint clearly that banning even more electronic learning tools is not an acceptable resolution. A 'complete' electronics ban is not very realistic, or would likely cause even more complaints + parents coming at the school with torches and pitchforks + more people pulling out of the school. One way you get bad rules killed by either getting many people to object to the rule to the authority responsible, or escalate to a higher authority for a change of the rule or to REMOVE/REPLACE the person responsible for the ban plus Shame/Villify on social media, etc.

I suspect describing it as a gray area was enough to set off alarm bells for him in the first place. He's had a very strong bent towards Lawful ever since he was 2 or 3.

Well, there is such a thing as undecided law. You would say there are certain exceptions to the law that apply for some specific situations and uses of the work which your legal advisors are aware of that are beyond the comprehension of a 10-year-old.

A child deciding to be "rigid" and pretend as if they're expert on the law doesn't mean you're actually being outsmarted.
Even if the propaganda made by the publishers would probably agree with this position.

the pointed out copyright law really isn't on par with the civil rights movement.

That's just an opinion that derives from current culture and common beliefs.

Using a 3rd party to break a digital access restriction is just as much civil disobedience.

100 years ago, or even at the time the movement started the proposition for "civil rights" to the general public would have been considered so unimportant they wouldn't be on-par with your right of ownership and resale or re-use/re-read rights to the book you bought
  ---- It's the result of acts of civil disobedience and movements using that tool that affects the Law AND the cultural norms.

Re:Pull Him Out of Public School

[vux984]

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.

My solution

[93 Escort Wagon]

I don't buy digital media unless I can remove the DRM. Kindle files are easy, and last time I checked my Snow Leopard VM running iTunes 10.7 and Requiem still worked (for 1080P content, not 4K) - although movies on Blu-Ray tend to be cheaper than digital versions, and the physical disc serves as a backup for the ripped version I immediately generate and store on our in-house streaming server.

How do I explain all that to my daughter? I tell her I believe that once I've bought something, it should be mine to play and/or read in whatever manner and on whatever device I prefer.

It's time to replace your son

[Doub]

Yours is brainwashed. And next time don't let the system install all that bloatware in his brain, you don't have root access and you can't remove it.

Re:It's time to replace your son

[ELCouz]

We don't have root access to our own brain neither. Delete operations are prohibited.

Re:It's time to replace your son

[david_thornley]

So who do I sue about all the stuff that's gotten deleted from my brain over the years?

While it may not be the most age appropriate...

[Pollux]

This Oatmeal Comic might be a good place to start.

Re:While it may not be the most age appropriate...

[virtigex]

In the case of Game of Thrones, you can binge-watch the entire seven seasons in a month for $14.99 via HBO Now, so the Oatmeal is out of date.

Re:While it may not be the most age appropriate...

[orgelspieler]

Thank you!! I had forgotten about that. He loves Exploding Kittens, so he'll probably enjoy this.

Always buy/convert to open format content

[phayes]

_My_ kids saw me spending weeks Ripping all my DVD's & CD's so that we could watch/listen without having to search for waylaid disks (as in why is this CD in this case & where is the disk that was supposed to be here. As I continued to buy new physical content and just backed it up to digital storage, they could see that the objective was NOT to rip-off the authors but to digitize what we purchase.

DRM on EBooks is the main reason I either purchase content that is already non-DRM encumbered or, If I cannot find it without DRM, I purchase it in a DRM scheme that has been broken (Kindle eBooks) & convert the DRM'ed content to a non-encumbered format (EPubs with Calibre. I then delete the DRM encumbered copy.

Apple's Fairplay not having been broken, it's DRM makes it impossible to do so, so I don't buy eBooks through Apple.

Re:Always buy/convert to open format content

[ELCouz]

Why rip when downloading is faster? Media is already all tagged // properly labeled... your time is precious with your family.

Re:Always buy/convert to open format content

[phayes]

I was ripping CDs & DVDs loooong before Spotify etc were created and much of the content I have is still unique.

Re:Always buy/convert to open format content

[phayes]

Assuming that someone is just now ripping all their DVDs/CDs is the sign of a clueless Anonymous Coward.

Re:Always buy/convert to open format content

[91degrees]

I find ripping faster, at least for CDs. Load up audiograbber. Put in CD. Set it going. All nicely tagged thanks to CDDB. And I can choose my own bitrate.

I don't spend ages looking for a torrent, or worry about all the crap that the torrent sites spew onto my PC.

Re:Always buy/convert to open format content

[orgelspieler]

Ah. Lead by example. I guess I have been too good/lazy of a consumer for him to witness anything else. I used to rip and make copies as needed whenever it suited me, but ever since having kids, I haven't had time. LOL. This probably is the root cause of the problem. Very insightful. Thank you.

Re:Always buy/convert to open format content

[phayes]

Glad to have helped. Leading by example does help avoid problems when puberty & then adulthood come around...

Do note that this was mostly 10-20 years ago before legal streaming services (for Video & Music) were available. Nowadays, as noted in replies to my post most people would not have the patience nor the need (except as you noted for books).

Re:Always buy/convert to open format content

[david_thornley]

It's a good example for the kids. It doesn't teach them that they have the right to download whatever they want, but rather explicitly demonstrates format shifting.

Best explanation of the inanity of copyright

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Watch this episode of The Brittas Empire (which is itself illegally offered for free viewing on Youtube, incidentally - oh the irony) and your son will learn all there is to know about copyright.

Just buy a real fuking book...

[Anonymous Coward]

He'll be able to take it everywhere in his backpack and just read. And when he finishes, he'll give it to his friends and borrow other books from them.

Re:Just buy a real fuking book...

[Motard]

But what will his dad post about?

Re:Tell him it's bunk believed by people with powe

[Doub]

Copyright is a pure (artificial and arbitrary) product of capitalism. Socialism is the library. You're just brainwashed by the western propaganda as his kid is.

You can't

[Snotnose]

I have music I bought on 8 track (Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, Led Zep, UFO), then bought the album (my music buying exploded about this time, an album a week), then in some cases bought the CD. I have some 3500 CDs. It's easier to download the MP3 of a CD I own than it is to dig through boxes in a closet, find the CD, and rip it myself. Have I broken copyright law? I'm sure the MAFIAA will say HELL YES!, but I'm not so sure. Where is the line? Own the CD, download the MP3? Own the LP, download the MP3? Own the 8-track, download the MP3?

IMHO, I bought the IP already. To me I'm not breaking any laws. Those who get money from the buying of 8-tracks->LPs->cassettes->CDs think otherwise. I think they're thinking is greedy and they need to cut back on the coke and hookers they consume.

Copyright law is about sucking as much $$$ out of people as it can, not what is right.

We won't even get into the CDs that sounded worse than the LPs. *cough* Nektar - Remember the future, *cough* Black Sabbath - Paranoid, *cough* I can come up with dozens of other examples where they rushed out a CD that sounded like crap cuz, well, people wanted their LPs on :"A better sounding format".

Copyright is easy to explain...

[bobbied]

Copyright's are easy to explain and understand. You don't copy stuff that you didn't produce yourself, without permission.

Fair use laws... That's the problem here. They don't make sense to the average person.

So... I can buy an MP3 of a song and play it in my house, in my car, privately all day long, but I cannot play it in public or use it in my business... Except if my business use is considered "fair Use". So I can play this song as a background for my Christmas light display, for the public, as long as I'm not charging admission or being paid for it. I can play the song in a church service, but I may not broadcast that song or distribute recordings of the song being played in the service without a license. I can write a review of the song, even including a small portion of the song in my review, but I may not play the entire song...

Then there is the whole Internet bastion of sites like U-Tube where you seemingly can do anything you want with the song, including splicing in other copyrighted material (video, pictures and the like) without any permission, but only because U-Tube is paying the license fees for you, unless they don't, or you distribute your material some other way... Unless it is considered public domain in the first place because the artist has been dead long enough.

I can understand how kids would be confused by all this...

Re:Copyright is easy to explain...

[swillden]

Copyright's are easy to explain and understand.

Correct use of apostrophes, now, that's tough.

Re:Copyright is easy to explain...

[JesseMcDonald]

Copyright's are easy to explain and understand. You don't copy stuff that you didn't produce yourself, without permission.

Fair use laws... That's the problem here. They don't make sense to the average person.

If that is how you think of copyright then you don't understand copyright at all. Fair use laws exist because the "simple" version of copyright, you have stated it, is fundamentally and obviously wrong and would never be accepted by the public. Don't just take my word for it; the fair use doctrine in the U.S. came about precisely because the Supreme Court recognized that copyright sans fair use infringed on the freedom of speech. There are many situations where it is plainly unreasonable to expect anyone to ask permission before making a copy. The more egregious cases (e.g. backups, parody, educational use) have been codified as "fair use" to co-opt the more dangerous forms of opposition and keep people from questioning the underlying premise that non-original speech is something that should require permission. (The other cases where permission is still required are also unreasonable, but less obviously so.)

Copyright has its roots in state censorship, and dates from a time when enforcement only directly affected a handful of publishers. It was wrong when it was originally introduced, and it hasn't aged well as improvements in communications and information processing have made copying a fundamental aspect of modern life.

Re:Copyright is easy to explain...

[bobbied]

Copyright's are easy to explain and understand.

Correct use of apostrophes, now, that's tough.

Ah yes, the grammar Nazi fails with commas... But we all understood what you where trying to say, so I'm not complaining.

Re:Copyright is easy to explain...

[swillden]

Copyright's are easy to explain and understand.

Correct use of apostrophes, now, that's tough.

Ah yes, the grammar Nazi fails with commas.

I was more a joke than grammar Nazi-ism. In any case, there was nothing amiss in my use of commas.

Show him the science...

[blahplusplus]

... about how his brain doesn't reason correctly. You can tell people the facts and you won't reason to the right conclusion:

Science on reasoning

The reality is IP law is so out of control you need to sit down and get a good reason as to why it's bullshit.

Teach him about the theft of PC games and show him most wanted 2005 and NFS world online - same game but just rebranded for corporations to take control of the files on their servers. The reality is the corporate world has been stealing everything that isn't nailed down because they know the public is tech illiterate and indoctrinated. There is no such thing as balanced capitalism if you look at the last 200 years of copyright law. Go pick up a copy of Most wanted 2005 and download NFS World online, and show him how corporations trick people.

I'll use the example of need for speed for the PC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need_for_Speed:_Most_Wanted_(2005_video_game)

Same game forked and modified to be held hostage and rebranded "MMO".

NFSWORLD homepage with years the game has been shut down

Against intellectual monopoly

Against intellectual monopoly

Re:Pull Him Out of Public School

[sittingnut]

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.

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

do you have any data/study that demonstrate kids exposed to social world of a real world community, including among other things, "church, sports, and social field trips" etc, are less exposed to reality, than kids who grow up in extremely juvenile social world of american public high school(an artificial world of recent construction, very different from "real" world")?

also , given the snow-flaky behavior of kids coming who come out of public schools, who loudly, and sometimes violently, demand they want to to be protected from ideas that conflict with dominant establishment "liberal" ideology, there is enough proof, that contrary to what you say, brainwashing and inability to deal with reality is definitely a public school thing. whether it is also home school thing is yet to be demonstrated.

For years I told my kid I was a pirate

[rsilvergun]

And I insisted on it. She was upset because a) I pull her leg a lot and b) I kept insisting for years. Around the time she learned to use the internet she came to me in a huff and said "You're a software pirate!".

Sadly me piratin' days be over. I use legally obtained copies of all the software I have, even the games. Steam & Gog made piracy obsolete. And it's not worth the trouble to pirate Microsoft OSes.

Re:For years I told my kid I was a pirate

[IMightB]

Well for us weekend warrior pirates, who would rather do things according to law, and only resort to pirating as a last resort, finding a trustworthy DL is actually kinda hard.

Maybe he could just read the book at home

[ahodgson]

There are a lot nuances to this.

You could explain that illegal is not necessarily immoral, especially in a case where you've paid for the content.

You could encourage him to choose books from authors who don't publish with DRM, which is probably the best way for any individual to influence the market. But won't get him this book and is probably over his head.

Or you could just put the book on his Kindle and not tell him how you did it, since it sounds like he's going to drop a dime on you if you tell him you downloaded it. Maybe download 1984 for him while you're at it.

Re:Maybe he could just read the book at home

[Actually, I do RTFA]

You could encourage him to choose books from authors who don't publish with DRM

In fairness, it's the publishers, not the authors, who decide on DRM. I'm sure not many new authors have enough publishers competing over their work to pick and choose.

Re:Maybe he could just read the book at home

[burtosis]

Maybe download 1984 for him while you're at it.

And when his legally bought copy of 1984 with notes he added for a class assignment gets remote wiped wby amazon with no warning you will have expertly taught him both this lesson and the definition of irony at the same time. God level parenting.

Re:Maybe he could just read the book at home

[orgelspieler]

LOLOL!!! Thank you!

Re:Maybe he could just read the book at home

[orgelspieler]

I think that's what bothers me most. He bought a DRM'd format from a Disney-owned author. It's like the worst of the worst for a copyleft guy like me

Re:Maybe he could just read the book at home

[david_thornley]

You have just described the final reason I got a Nook rather than a Kindle. I read the Nook ToS carefully, and they were explicit that what I got from the service was mine, and that the worst they could do to me would be cutting off my service.

Re:Simple

[penix1]

1. Explain that people need homes, because it's very cold in the winter.

2. Explain that you need money to have homes.

3. Explain that there are lots of creative people who create content in order to make money. ("Artists")

4. Explain that they only make money if people pay them to create the content.

5. Explain that the people who pay them to create the content ("Producers") also need money to have homes.

6. Explain that the Producers will only have money to have homes if they can get paid for selling the content to people.

7. Explain that the only reason Producers can get paid for selling the content to people is because of copyright, since stuff is cheap to copy.

8. Turn this into a lesson about the evolution of text and music and art in history, the printing press and the phonograph and the camera, and how over time it became more and more accessible and cheaper to copy content.

9. Explain the Sony Betamax suit that those producers lost allowing people to "time shift" and how this is an extension of that same decision.

10. Explain the concepts of the public domain and why that is the sole reason for the existence of copyright.

11. Explain how those producers lobbied (read bribed) legislators to extend copyright to the point that nothing will be released to the public domain in his lifetime.

12. Explain that the DMCA was created by those same politicians in the same manor as the extensions to try and prevent format shifting.

13. Explain what the definition of greed is (on both sides of this issue).

Legality and morality

[HalfFlat]

The first step is to demonstrate that what is legal and what is moral are not coextensive. Once one understands that the law is at best a compromise, and its formation subject to the whims of the powerful, typically preserving, if not aggravating, the divisions in our societies, then copyright makes perfect sense.

Re:Legality and morality

[david_thornley]

The second step is to demonstrate that what people say is illegal isn't necessarily illegal. The action described has an excellent chance of being considered legal by the courts.

"The talk"

[Anonymous Coward]

Well son, a long time ago, here in the US, some very smart people decided to give the government the power to tell its citizens that making copies of other people's work is illegal. The intent was to make sure that ideas weren't stolen and sold under someone else's name. They called this power "copyright" and it had a time limit of fourteen years. Every time this time limit was set to expire, however, the government extended this time limit longer, and longer, and longer, and expanded what it meant more and more. Twenty-eight years ago the government gave everything ever made an automatic copyright. Twenty-five years ago the government made copyright permanent. Twenty-one years ago the government greatly expanded what copyright could prevent you from doing in addition to prohibiting copies.

It is illegal to do anything more than watch, listen to, or play things that are copyrighted, which is everything, forever. (Pause) Does that sound ridiculous to you? My only advice to you about copyright is don't get caught.

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

9. Explain that the only reason copyright is so long as because walt disney/hollywood bought some really good laws.

Explain by Example

[Anonymous Coward]

Block youtube, 99.99% of it is illegal anyway.

Disallow him from sharing DVDs with friends, after all, the content creator was only compensated for ONE sale.

Disallow him from having friends over to watch any paid content, unless they cough up the dough for the full purchase price.

Disallow him from purchasing anything used, since the content creator doesn't get a cut.

Disallow him from singing any copyrighted songs.

Disallow him from posting anything to youtube, since some photographs or content could be claimed.

Disallow sharing of the ipod with friends, after all, the content is licensed to that device, and that purchaser only.

Make sure he doesn't skip any commercials, since the content creators depend on that.

Buy printer ink? no more generic for you!

Direct a portion of his allowance to pay for the future lawsuits from content creators, about 50% should do it.

Put on the most intrusive, restrictive content filter you can find. block all the ports for streaming services, or slow them down to make them almost unbearable. Take a percentage of his allowance to cover this, say another 20%. Call it the Information-Freedom tax.

He's already well on his way to being a good consumer. Remember to tell him to CONSUME, don't question, just CONSUME.

Re:Pull Him Out of Public School

[ShanghaiBill]

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.

Re: Pull Him Out of Public School

[VikingNation]

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.

So let me get this straight. Starting in public Middle/Jr High school preteens begin to be stratified into caste systems and are socialized by peers that they âoecannotâ accept those one year or two years under them. Middle and high school students spend the majority of their time in a fixed location away from the âoepublic.â Meanwhile kids being homeschooled and participating in coops are socializing with a wide variety of pre teens and teens regardless of their year in school. The homeschoolers are also out and about in the âoepublicâ and can actually have a conversation with a adults.

Tell him not to worry.

[Charcharodon]

Explain to him that it is damage to information. The internet will route around said damage.

Honestly the only time pay for copyrighted material is when the owner doesn't make it a pain in the ass process and isn't a dick about it on price.

For example my engineering books. They want in many cases nearly $200 for the hard copy and even more for some sort of limited digital access. So I go online download a pirated PDF and buy the book. If the book sucks or is not used much in the course, I'll just get the PDF and keep my $200.

Now on the other hand if they post the digital book on Amazon for $40 and have the hard copy for another $80 (and is a decent book worth keeping) I will pay money for both.

The lesson you should teach your son is that some publishers/systems are designed to steal from you the consumer and that you have no moral obligation to play nice with them if they are going to be douchebags.

This way:

[Lisias]

"Son, that's the deal. You wash the dishes this lunch, and I let you play Okami for the rest of the day".

Then take the PS3 to somewhere else, where he can not access it.

But leave the PS2 attached into the TV with a pirated Okami copy.

When you see the kid playing, say "This is what I was talking about"

Show him all these answers

[boudie2]

Tell him that very few people live up to the expectations placed upon them by the law.

Give one a lollipop

[Trax3001BBS]

Have a friend take it from them, saying it will cost 25 as they own the Font used for it's wrapper.

Now explain the best you can.

a constructive civics lesson

[Goldsmith]

I was raised in a (professionally) political family. That meant that as a kid, I understood that it was my parents' job to write or change laws. Laws can change. Some laws are bad. Some laws used to be good, and now aren't. Most of the rules and laws we actually interact with are local. Many more people work on local laws than state or national laws. That's a good place to start.

Next, morality. Your son has good moral instincts. Don't discourage that! Generally, you shouldn't do anything you don't want other people knowing about. If you have to keep it secret to keep being who you want to be, don't do it.

Finally, breaking the rules. Sometimes you find you need to break a rule. You know that something is right, and you don't care what society or the law says about it. In that case, you need to be ready to accept the consequences.

In this case, what are the consequences of violating copyright laws? What are the consequences of violating the school rules? Why are you more willing to violate a federal law than a school rule? (As a parent, I know that my child will be punished for me breaking a school rule. In that situation, I'm also happy to try to take any consequences myself.) These are good lessons on how society actually works.

My best advice to you is that you have your strongest voice as a citizen in local government, which includes your school. Teach your child to engage in a productive way with government by example. Don't simply accept what the government is telling you to do. That's not how our system is supposed to work. The solution here is to get your school to change their rules. Start with a teacher, then the principle, then up from there.

Re:a constructive civics lesson

[Actually, I do RTFA]

And all my mod points are already gone. That is a constructive plan that takes the lesson far beyond copyright.

I particularly like the question: why are you more willing to break a federal law than a school rule (which probably doesn't even rise to the level of a crime)?

Re:a constructive civics lesson

[ET3D]

Great post. Much better to take the constructive way than cop out and find excuses.

Re:a constructive civics lesson

[orgelspieler]

My best advice to you is that you have your strongest voice as a citizen in local government, which includes your school. Teach your child to engage in a productive way with government by example. Don't simply accept what the government is telling you to do. That's not how our system is supposed to work. The solution here is to get your school to change their rules. Start with a teacher, then the principle, then up from there.

He's actually on his student council. (They have student council in 5th grade!) Also, in April, he went to Austin to deliver testimony on a bill that was important to him. So he doesn't mind (even relishes) being active. I think it's just the "breaking the rules" thing is hard for him. He nags me when I go 67 in a 65. Maybe I should count my blessings. Thank you for the insight.

Re:a constructive civics lesson

[david_thornley]

Another question: was that action definitely illegal? Definitely legal? In a gray area? There's at least an argument that it's covered under fair use. It's a book. The additional copy is to read the book, nothing more, and it does not diminish the commercial value of the book. Format shifting has long been considered legal.

Have him read some history - firsthand accounts

[Alan R Light]

First of all, let me say that your son's attitude is a very good sign. Teenagers often engage in very black-or-white thinking, with little tolerance for anything in between. The only thing that will break them out of this is real world experience. It is excellent that he cares about doing the right thing.

Second, get some good firsthand historical accounts. Let him read for himself what leaders of rebellions were thinking when they led their rebellions. He will quickly learn that many of them were actually defending the law as they understood it against "legal authorities" who were blatantly violating the law. Sometimes they won, sometimes they lost, sometimes they had good ideas, sometimes they had bad ideas; but they all recognized that authorities could persist in doing bad things, and that sometimes the people had to act against such authorities.

Personally I like first or secondhand accounts of the American Revolution (but not the superficial overviews typically called "history books") - the sort either writing about their own experiences or the author writing directly from the participants' notes with frequent quotations, especially if written in the immediate aftermath. I like this period particularly because there were so many well-educated and literate people commenting on why they were doing what they were doing. Of course, many of the sons of those revolutionaries sadly failed in the third war for American independence, but many of them also recorded their opinions. (And Clyde Wilson's recent short book of essays, "The Yankee Problem", gives some good insights into the origins of that conflict.)

But accounts from many periods and places are similar. The one book I recommend to everyone is David Livingstone's "Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa", because Livingstone was in a unique position to be a qualified proto-anthropologist who was also the first European to contact, and write about, numerous tribes in the middle of Africa who had essentially no contact, even indirectly, with European culture prior to Livingstone's arrival. Livingstone himself already spoke the language of one of the chief tribes in the area, having previously spent years with a related tribe that spoke the same language. His account gives a sympathetic but realistic view of humanity without the influences of the modern world, and personally I think it should be required reading for anyone in the humanities.

But that said I also particularly recall reading about Axum (or Aksum) and the Axumite empire; Schiller's account of The Thirty Years War in Germany, and R. B. Cunninghame Graham's accounts of the history of Paraguay, including the Jesuit Wars and the War of the Triple Alliance which was the most devastating war in modern history. Despite his socialist leanings (somewhat forgivable seeing as the full horrors of socialism were not well understood at the time - and illustrated in "A Vanished Arcadia" which was supposed to demonstrate how socialism could work but really only showed that when Guarani Indians, a relatively advanced tribe, were forced into political associations by external threats and placed under the leadership of some of the most intelligent and capable men from all of Europe, they could sort of manage to get by on a small scale as long as they adopted some capitalist principles, but not so well that they didn't all leave every time the external threat receded) he was an excellent writer and historian. (Cunninghame Graham was also a friend of the author Joseph Conrad, and several of Conrad's most famous characters are based on him.)

Incidentally, the books mentioned above by Livingstone, Schiller, and Cunninghame Graham are available free from Project Gutenberg. I would also recommend the biographies of Francis Marion available there, particularly the ones by Simms and James. (The Weems hagiography of Marion is useful primarily as a demonstration that books are not always to be trusted. Weems, who famously told a lie about George Washington never telling a lie, was well known for his fabrications.) I know about these books because I put them them online in the 1990s. You should also be able to find an excellent book about Aksum by Dr. Stuart C. Munro-Hay, via Google.

Re:Tell him it's bunk believed by people with powe

[JesseMcDonald]

Copyright is an artificial monopoly enforced by the State. Nothing at all to do with capitalism. (Unless you meant "crony capitalism", a.k.a. "corporatism", which isn't the same thing at all.)

Rendering Help

[emilycole86641]

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The myth and the demolition

[istartedi]

It depends on the age of the child. The myth is for grade school. The demolition is for adolescence, and adulthood.

Re:Pull Him Out of Public School

[grahamsz]

Anecdotally i've seen both, some are very well socialized and others not so much. I think many homeschool parents are hyper conscious about this and compensate with other socialization.

I just cant imagine how you keep up with curriculum. I look at the stuff i did in high school and i'm still rather surprised at how much you can learn at 16/17 - I knew way more math then than I do now. I'm sure i could get back to a place where i could understand differential equations myself, but that assumes my child wants to pursue similar specialties to me. The few parents I know who home school have advanced degrees themselves and do fine by their kids academically, but they've also seemingly molded their kids very much in their own image (or perhaps they were naturally like that, it's hard to say).

Do what I heard when I was quite young

[eclectro]

Explain it in terms of copyright "holders" and *not* copyright "owners".

Let him make his own decisions

[adfraggs]

It sounds a bit like you're trying to explain your own particular interpretation of copyright. I think you need to instead allow that if you present him with all the facts and make the case as simple and unbiased as possible, he might just come to a different conclusion than you. We can't make our kids think a particular way and part of being a teenager is learning to think and decide things for themselves. Maybe step back a bit from trying to justify your own habits and instead just support him in finding out what he needs in order to work it out for himself. That might still mean you can present some challenging information and questions, but at the end of the day that's all they'll end up being: questions. You might ask him what he thinks is "fair" and "right" and "the best thing for everyone". Find some different angles from which to approach the same issue and see if he can come up with good answers. But ultimately you're going to have to let him make up his own mind and be prepared that he might still think what you've done isn't OK.

_this_ is what needs to be explained

[epine]

If you already have a copy, and then download a copy in another form, it is CONSTRUCTIVELY a format shift. It might take a good lawyer to make that stick, of course.

Life in the 100% non-constructive world is so impractical as to be almost unbearable, so we are all effectively quasi-criminals most the time, which doesn't matter until it does, and when that day comes, unfortunately, the system is rigged so that some of us can afford better justice than others.

There, I just saved you at least ten fairy tales (though you might not thank me for replacing the figurative wolves with real wolves).

Roger Ebert — 2009

Like the hero of "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," also based on one of his books, the creatures of Dahl's valley seem to know more than they're letting on; perhaps even secrets we don't much want to know.

Children, especially, will find things they don't understand, and things that scare them. Excellent. A good story for children should suggest a hidden dimension, and that dimension of course is the lifetime still ahead of them.

There's a few more lines on this theme in the original that I was too frightened to quote.

That's Illegal Dad

[geekymachoman]

> I found a bootleg PDF online. I tried to explain that he could just read that, but he freaked out. "That's illegal, Dad!"

Sounds to me his indoctrination is going well. Good job! And most slashdotters agree from what I see here in the comments section, and what's worse they're mixing concepts of legality with morality. Mother of God, save us.

Submitting to stupidity (or even worse, indoctrinating your kids and then tapping them on the back when they submit to stupidity) is everything what's wrong with modern society. This is how corporations rape people in the ass, the these copyright laws are extraordinary example of that, and greed. If I have to explain to you (I assume all here are adults) at this point in your life why submitting to stupidity JUST BECAUSE IT'S LAW ultimately makes more harm than good then you're already far too gone and explaining anything will just bounce off of you.

The alternative is not breaking the law.

Alternative is explaining how the system is designed to maximize their profits, and how you can bend it around in your favour without breaking the law, which you have to do because the system is set there to screw you over ( to which you're submitting). But of course, this requires the community and the parent to actually have brain, and not just being a drone / tool... trying to make his offspring to be yet another 9 to 5 tool slave.

Re:That's Illegal Dad

[david_thornley]

The other alternative is to look up fair use, and explain how this ties into the part of copyright law that is concerned with fair use. Too many people seem to have this idea that the law is what Disney wants it to be.

There is only one way to reach kids...

[Wescotte]

You have to talk to their in their own language.

Re:There is only one way to reach kids...

[fph il quozientatore]

Here it is then: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

With 2 simple phrases

[BeCre8iv]

No victim no crime.

+

The law is an ass

Santa analogy

[snowtigger]

Here's how we explained to our 5 year old how Santa cannot bring any toy.

Santa makes toys in his workshop. But he's only allowed to make toys that isn't under copyright. So he cannot make ... because of copyright.

Re:Pull Him Out of Public School

[ShanghaiBill]

Home schooling does't mean the parents are the sole teachers. Many home schoolers use online courses, including Khan Academy and other resources. Many work in groups with other home schooled kids with parents rotating to teach their area of expertise.

Disclaimer: My kids attend public school, but I supplement that with plenty of learning at home (rockets, robots, programming, explosives, etc.).

Re:Pull Him Out of Public School

[Arab]

Disclaimer: My kids attend public school, but I supplement that with plenty of learning at home (rockets, robots, programming, explosives, etc.).

Are you homeschooling them or preparing them for war?

Re:Pull Him Out of Public School

[Cryacin]

I'm just waiting for Amazon or Disney to state that consuming any content, anywhere, anyhow, in any shape or form is copyright and patent infringement and that damages must immediately be paid to them.

Re:Pull Him Out of Public School

[Joce640k]

Being able to pretend you're an ex SEAL/green beret/whatever is a useful skill in the USA.

Re:Pull Him Out of Public School

[Anonymous Coward]

So don't buy the books, download them.

That's what this is all about anyway, teaching kids that copying is not wrong, copyright law is wrong.

And of course show the kid that copying is not theft. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Pull Him Out of Public School

[Gr8Apes]

do you have any data/study that demonstrate kids exposed to social world of a real world community, including among other things, "church, sports, and social field trips" etc, are less exposed to reality

For data, yes, I do. I have 2 sets of neighbors that home schooled for years. Their kids are having difficult times adjusting to and integrating with society as they leave the safe zone of their cloistered nest.

also , given the snow-flaky behavior of kids coming who come out of public schools, who loudly, and sometimes violently, demand they want to to be protected from ideas that conflict with dominant establishment "liberal" ideology, there is enough proof, that contrary to what you say, brainwashing and inability to deal with reality is definitely a public school thing. whether it is also home school thing is yet to be demonstrated.

And yet the overwhelming majority of people with influence in the public sphere are not home schooled. In fact, a shocking number are not even liberal. Both proving the lie to your unsubstantiated assertions. Are there kids coming out of public school that are woefully incapable of dealing with life in society? Of course, but they are in the minority of those graduating from public schools.

Dad, why is copyright . . . ?

[PMuse]

My children are at this same age, asking similar questions.

To 'explain copyright', first you will need to know your own goal.

Are you trying to teach your son how to comply with the law? Or, are you trying to teach your son how to recognize when a bad law is being used to make society poorer?

Re:Dad, why is copyright . . . ?

[david_thornley]

Or are you trying to teach your son that laws can be complicated, and that there are circumstances where copying is completely legal?

Re:Pull Him Out of Public School

[gnick]

Referencing "gay marriage" is taking a side.

Australia just legalized "gay marriage." How do you cover that event without mentioning "gay marriage"? "Australia just passed a law... We won't say exactly what it is, because we don't want to take a side. Anyway, that's what they're out celebrating. Their new law that shall not be named."

Affirmative action is discrimination.

Well, now we know your side. Let's hope the teachers are more balanced than you.

Illegal immigration is illegal, so there is no other side.

Again, we can infer your side. The question of what to do with people who live here without legal status has no obvious, indisputable answer. There is certainly more than one side.

Re:Pull Him Out of Public School

[Cro Magnon]

Knowledge of rockets and explosives would be useful in the public school I went to.

Re: Pull Him Out of Public School

[Wulf2k]

That's something that homeschoolers "can" do with all the free time that they have from not going to school.

Or they can sit in a corner of their basement for 16 hours a day reading their parents manifesto on how the government wants to steal their dental fillings.

It turns out that humanity has the entire spectrum covered.

Let your kid make up his own mind

[jdavidb]

Tell your kid your opinion and why you believe it, and let him come to his own conclusions.

My brother used to say how ironic it was that I didn't believe in copyright but followed the law scrupulously, while he did believe in copyright but he and all his musician friends violated it willy nilly. It's interesting how we grew up so differently. We can still be friends.

Tell him the story of Walt Disney

[dizzy8578]

The plucky entrepreneur who strip mined the public domain and made millions (back when millions was a LOT of money) and reinvested some of that cash into lawyers and lobbyists to make damn sure no one else on the planet would every be able to do the same.

https://priceonomics.com/how-m...

Anecdata

[Tenebrousedge]

Did you not understand something about the words "data" or "study", or are you under the misapprehension that the plural of anecdote is data?

This is a fraught and complicated issue, which suggests taking some hard looks at hard numbers. To me it's unlikely that being homeschooled is any more influential than any other social institution in human history. It's clearly not a universal path to -- I mean, whatever, pick your favorite bugaboo -- so to anyone claiming harm, it had better be measurable.

Re:Anecdata

[Gr8Apes]

Did you not understand something about the words "data" or "study", or are you under the misapprehension that the plural of anecdote is data?

I understood it perfectly. I carefully chose to present some data, based on personal observations. It's just too small a data set for a proper study or drawing any general conclusions. It is no more or less invalid data than my observations that rain falls, sunshine heats, stars move in the heavens, etc.

This is a fraught and complicated issue, which suggests taking some hard looks at hard numbers. To me it's unlikely that being homeschooled is any more influential than any other social institution in human history. It's clearly not a universal path to -- I mean, whatever, pick your favorite bugaboo -- so to anyone claiming harm, it had better be measurable.

Well, there was "home schooling" for millennia, and it didn't do well for humanity as a whole. Since general public schooling began less than 200 years ago, look at the progress that has been made. I think denigrating public schooling should be looked at harshly. Now I'll be the first to agree that not all public schools are good, sometimes due to teachers, sometimes funding, and sometimes just the makeup of the student body (whether it's politically incorrect to say so doesn't mean that this doesn't have bearing on a school) In the US until recently your options largely were moving to a home served by a better public school or private schools, both of which only the more well off could afford to do. For some schools, home schooling would be seen as an improvement. In general my personal opinion is that home schooling should be governed and regulated no less than public school - meaning holding and maintaining teaching certificates and attending teacher workshops, state oversight, and state tests. This ensures that all children have at least a minimum common education.

Re:Anecdata

[camazotz]

In many states this is a requirement. My parents had to get teaching certifications in Arizona to home school, for example (at least, back in the 80's this was a requirement), and as home schooled students my sister and I had to pass state SAT classes as well as take (and pass) the GED. There are many regions where the odds of a better education are far likelier if you go through home schooling or private tutoring than if you stay with the public schools, and those are often located in states where few standards are expected of home schooling.

Re:Pull Him Out of Public School

[William Baric]

Affirmative action is discrimination. That's a fact. There is no side to take when talking about facts. Of course, we can be in favor of this discrimination, or we can be against it, but it doesn't change that affirmative is discrimination.

In the same way, illegal immigration is obviously illegal. I mean even a 3-year-old can understand the concept of "adjectives".

Re:Pull Him Out of Public School

[gnick]

There is no side to take when talking about facts.

Bull shit. There may be no sides to take on whether facts are facts, but when we're talking "about facts," we're talking about them in relation to ideas that may be disputed. The definition of "gay marriage" isn't up for debate; its legality is. The definition of "affirmative action" isn't up for debate; if/how it should be implemented is. Whether or not "illegal immigration" is illegal isn't up for debate; what to do with illegal immigrants is.

You seem to be suggesting that these topics all have only one side because there are facts involved. I'd suggest that you don't know WTF you're talking about. None of those topics are one-sided, even though we can "talk about facts" on all three.

Re:Kindle=trash

[orgelspieler]

This is the funniest part of the story. He won the Kindle in a raffle. The little bugger has never entered a raffle where he didn't win at least something. I should take him to Vegas!

Re:You can't sing Happy Birthday

[orgelspieler]

Actually, that's in PD now.

Re:Pull Him Out of Public School

[vux984]

You got me. :) I'm not sure I can cite a study. I am aware of the studies you likely found.

I can tell you what I don't find satisfying about those studies though: the metrics I've seen don't work. They talk about employment, voting, volunteering, etc. And that's all valid to look at, and homeschoolers do well there.

Where my experience with homeschoolers falls apart is that they aren't as self-reliant, and they don't cope as well with difficult people.

They were raised by helicopter parents, who were always there to tell them how to cope with things, so they have the benefit of all that personalized time and that shows -- but many of them have also missed out on how to deal with NOT having that resource available.

And secondly, they were never in the crucible that is public school; homeshoolers were socialized with other people who were like them. If they volunteered to something and the people were miserable cliquish pricks they never had to see them again, they don't have school 'crucible' experience.

When you read homeschooling literature, they count that as a positive. And I can understand why, but I think there is some value in it, the same way a little dirt in your life makes you healthier overall, public school toughens you up a in way you just don't get from Mom & Dad and their specially planned and curated and catered and chaperoned events with other Mom's & Dad's just like them.

I think there is value in learning how to succeed in a place that a homeschooling parent would never expose their kid.

I think the studies show better outcomes for homeschoolers, because there's a lot of kids in public schools whose parents just don't care and aren't involved (and that's tragic). But I also think the outcomes for kids in public school whose parents actually do care just as much as homeschooler parents are going to be better. I don't have a study for that and don't know how I'd even do one. But it isn't inconsistent with what we know -- I mean if we filtered out the results of the kids in highschool whose parents weren't involved with the kids, whose kids were little more than delinquents waiting to graduate to welfare and prison; if those were filtered out, the results of the remaining set would surge.

This is a basic life lesson that doesn't only appl

[wolf12886]

This is good introduction to a basic life lesson. And that lesson is that just because something is illegal doesn't always mean it's wrong to do.

Obviously this is a potentially dangerous leason which you might want to delay until he's older, but it couldnt hurt to lay a bit of groundwork for the idea.

Re:Simple

[david_thornley]

14. Introduce the concept of "fair use". (At least if you're in the US, as most countries don't have laws quite like taht.)

Fair Use Allows Personal Copies

[Frightened_Turtle]

As an author, I've always taken the stance that if you buy one of my books as an ebook, you should be able to read that book on any device you own that can display books. Be it an iPad, iPhone, Kindle, Galaxy #, etc. This is why I do not allow DRM on my books when published. Copyright fair use allows that you should be able to read that file on any device that you own. What copyright does not allow is you to make copies of that file and sell it to other people.

If your son has the ebook on his iPad, it is most likely in EPUB format. (If it is an enhanced book in Apple's iBook format, then this won't work.) Just make a copy of the EPUB file to the desktop. You can then run software that will convert the file to the Kindle MOBI format that he can then side load onto his Kindle.

Amazon has software that will convert EPUB files to Kindle files so you can read them on your Kindle. The program Calibre can also convert between formats.

I certainly appreciate your son's concern and respect for the copyright. But in this case, he can go ahead and make the copy so he can read it on another device.

Re:Tell him it's bunk believed by people with powe

[blahplusplus]

Copyright is an artificial monopoly enforced by the State. Nothing at all to do with capitalism

Capitalists have always needed a state and have always taken state subsidies and used the state to create monopolies, the jokes on you. Your thoughts on these matters are not even wrong.

Energy subsidies

https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2015/NEW070215A.htm

Interference in other states when the rich/corporations dont get their way

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mxp_wgFWQo&feature=youtu.be&list=PLKR2GeygdHomOZeVKx3P0fqH58T3VghOj&t=724

Protectionism for the rich and big business by state intervention, radical market interference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHj2GaPuEhY#t=349

Tuttle Twins to the rescue!

[iamacat]

https://tuttletwins.com/food/

Re:Pull Him Out of Public School

[camazotz]

Your argument regarding public schools actually also applies to home schooling. As someone who was home schooled, I'll make this comment: it depends heavily on the effort and intent of the parents as to what level of socialization and integration their children receive. This is why homeschooling is problematic....if you get lucky (as I did) and are exposed to adult, complex social interactions at a young age, then you find yourself unexpectedly more efficient and able to integrate into the workplace with less effort, as you've already learned how to "be an adult," while other teens were languishing in public school hell. But the same issues apply to public schools, which can vary dramatically in quality and experience. These are not simple black/white scenarios, and your anecdotal experience is not a sufficient data set to extrapolate from. That said....I'm not home schooling my own child, because I feel he will get far more out of a directed public/private school experience than I could offer him.

Re:Pull Him Out of Public School

[camazotz]

Having bashed the use of anecdotal evidence earlier I will now state that I know of almost no public school graduates who appear to have benefitted from their socialization experience in school. The only commonality of almost everyone I've known over time is that actual college experience seems to be the greatest factor in improving personal disposition and social ability. The worst cases --the people with serious social and emotional issues-- never went on to college, and suffer with their bizarre impressions of life post high school. Ironically despite being home schooled I've never actually met anyone else (other than my sister, of course) who was also home schooled so I have no frame of reference to compare here. I have a friend who's ex home schools their children. I concede that the one time I met them I got a really intense "Children of the Corn" vibe and I can't say why exactly.

Re:Pull Him Out of Public School

[camazotz]

The argument that home schoolers have the luxury of avoiding the shittier, more socially alarming and degrading elements of public school and therefore miss out is not actually a very good argument. The net result (in my experience) is that you end up an adult who doesn't put up with childish bullshit, because you learned that it's non-productive to tolerate the bad apples.

Re:Pull Him Out of Public School

[Gr8Apes]

I've always held that "home schooling" is great, after school. I freely admitted my data set wasn't big enough to draw any conclusions from. It's merely 2 data points that happen to fall on the "wrong" side of the scale for home school proponents. My data set is actually larger than what was stated, as we have second hand information from the coop that one set of home schoolers attend, and they universally seem to have social problems with society at large as they age out and move into society. The problems are not just social, but also job and college oriented as the challenges to get into a school or job appear to be much tougher for home schoolers in general unless they enter the family business or some extended catered support system, like a church oriented entity for those that do religious based home schooling.

Re: Pull Him Out of Public School

[FeltLion]

There is no âoepublicâ any longer, only special interest groups

Re:Pull Him Out of Public School

[vux984]

"you end up an adult who doesn't put up with childish bullshit, because you learned that it's non-productive to tolerate the bad apples."

Where did they learn that? In all the hours you spent never being exposed to them?

That doesn't add up.

People who did spend time with them are going to be better at identifying them, better at getting what they need from them, etc.

Learning 'not to tolerate the bad apples' doesn't really get you anywhere in a world where the bad apples frequently stand between you and something you need or want.