MPAA is Creating a Curriculum to be used in Elementary Schools to Teach Students the Value of Copyright and Dangers of Piracy

[EChondo]

http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/11/5090700/the-mpaa-wants-schools-to-teach-first-graders-the-dangers-of-digital
 

The copyright lobby hasn't been shy about pressing the anti-piracy case, but a new LA Times report suggests they're taking the battle to a place it's never been before: schools. A group called the Center for Copyright Information — backed by copyright groups like the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America, among others — is currently developing a curriculum in California to teach elementary schoolers the value of copyright and the dangers of piracy.

Called "Be a Creator," the proposed curriculum would target kindergarten through six graders with lessons like "Respect the Person: Give Credit," "It's Great to Create," and "Copyright Matters." In one section on image-sharing, teachers are instructed to tell the class, "you're not old enough yet to be selling your pictures online, but pretty soon you will be. And you'll appreciate if the rest of us respect your work by not copying it and doing whatever we want with it."

The committee presented the curriculum in September for pilot testing in the current school year — but as you might expect, teachers associations are skeptical, saying the modern curriculum is already full to bursting without the addition of copyright awareness. Still, copyright groups seem undeterred. As one lobbyist told the Times, "it's important to prepare children to succeed and thrive and learn how to share and create and move files in a way that's ethical and responsible."

 

What a load of BS.

 

If anyone is going to teach MY child the Internet, is going to be ME, not some lobbyist copright holders that sue everyone left and right and file false DMCA takedown notices.

[SpaceSquid]

Time to encourage kids not to listen to the corporates.

[Excon]

LOL, that is all I have to saw on the matter. I'm also with you on you teaching you kids about the internet. You probably have far better knowledge of what goes on on the internet compared to those idiots that have their dicks so far up their ass....

[Volbet]

I'm with you guys. I'm the one who should teach my daughter ethics and how to behave, not the school and definitely not the MPAA. 

[xRAGExSounDxRIOTX]

Oh great, old farts who have no concept of modern living are at it again.  If I had a child, I agree with @EChondo. So what this is saying is that basically taking somebody's picture of Google Images is unethical? 

[ionbasa]

Brainwashing. A corporate entity should have no impact on children's education. This is just f*cked up.

[neon]

Something like this should be learned just from basic morality, don't steal, don't murder ect. ect., but it has been demonstrated that completely normal and upstanding people who would not steal a DVD from a shop or buy a bootleg copy do actually download an mp3 or movie from the internet, so obviously something is not 'clicking' that that is something that you should not do, so perhaps actually telling people that you are not supposed to do it is right.  

Should this be taught in school, probably not, I doubt anyone waits until they start school to learn sheer basic right from wrong, but if it needs a reiteration in school then so be it.

 

PS, I know you've underlined and bolded to point out the main points of the article, but it doesn't have the same effect when you practically underline the entire article.

[EChondo]

PS, I know you've underlined and bolded to point out the main points of the article, but it doesn't have the same effect when you practically underline the entire article.

 

Thanks! Will take this into consideration.

[CornOnJacob]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuxO6CZptck

Need I say more?

[OCcomet]

Wow. Just wow. It's come down to this now? Corporate greed at its finest.

[juretrn]

Welcome to the combination of Brave New World and 1984, people. Free population: 0.

Disgusting corporate pile of excrement.

[SSL]

Nothing new here. This kind of thing has been going on for ages. Public education has always been intended to produce "good citizens", not improve quality of life or job prospects for the individual.

[Yoinkerman]

The way the article is written it's not wrong. A lot of people have no concept of ip or how everyone's hard work is just as valuable as theirs, believing instead that only what they do has value.

[Qpm5]

I think its funny as so many people in my school pirate music all the time.

[wpirobotbuilder]

At some point, the people who are pushing forward these decisions will retire/die. We can hope that new entrants to the business have a more modern mindset.

[LAwLz]

Their bullshit ads didn't work on adults so now they are taking aim at innocent children... Anti-piracy ads always reminds me of this:

 

They are always too over the top. Hell piracy isn't even an issue for the people like MPAA since they are making more money than ever.

[IDprofile]

This is so messed up. If you want to teach people about copyright go teach china!

[JaeDee884]

I'm loving how all you guys are going they need to modernise and this is wrong.

Yes it's wrong but the general picture I'm getting here is your all against the creators being paid. Piracy is illegal, piracy should be illegal but the punishments don't fit the crime.

If it wasn't for the general populous actually buying their media instead of pirating it like it common in the computer crowd, then the content producers wouldn't be able to afford to make the content.

Just because you know how to pirate doesn't mean your entitled to free content.

Oh and I work in a school in Australia, kids of that age don't ave a sense of worth so a bit of education towards teaching that stuff has value and creator rights will not hurt the system. But the curriculum has to be written and designed by accomplished teachers not government or corporations.

[EChondo]

I'm loving how all you guys are going they need to modernise and this is wrong.

Yes it's wrong but the general picture I'm getting here is your all against the creators being paid. Piracy is illegal, piracy should be illegal but the punishments don't fit the crime.

If it wasn't for the general populous actually buying their media instead of pirating it like it common in the computer crowd, then the content producers wouldn't be able to afford to make the content.

Just because you know how to pirate doesn't mean your entitled to free content.

Oh and I work in a school in Australia, kids of that age don't ave a sense of worth so a bit of education towards teaching that stuff has value and creator rights will not hurt the system. But the curriculum has to be written and designed by accomplished teachers not government or corporations.

I'm not against, but I'm also not for piracy.

 

You should use piracy because;

1. The content you want to legally purchase is not available in your region.

2. You wish to demo said content before purchasing.

 

For things like music, I can just listen on the radio or YouTube can buy it if I like it. I wait for movies and TV shows to come to digital services like Netflix and Hulu. However, the only medium that currently does not have a demo or easy access, is video games. I wait for reviews on the game and if I can, demo the game at a friend's place who already bought it(or, thanks to Steam, the new family sharing feature).

[JaeDee884]

I'm not against, but I'm also not for piracy.

 

You should use piracy because;

1. The content you want to legally purchase is not available in your region.

2. You wish to demo said content before purchasing.

 

For things like music, I can just listen on the radio or YouTube can buy it if I like it. I wait for movies and TV shows to come to digital services like Netflix and Hulu. However, the only medium that currently does not have a demo or easy access, is video games. I wait for reviews on the game and if I can, demo the game at a friend's place who already bought it(or, thanks to Steam, the new family sharing feature).

If its not available in your country, under Australian legislation (dunno about elsewhere) is not piracy

and if a user purchases said program within 7 days of pirating, then also under Australian law your in a grey area where it's technically is but not Piracy.

Basically in Australia you can return any item you purchase for any reason including not happy with purchase and get a full refund. so technically by extension you could just negate your 7 day period.

 

[TopWargamer]

Aw yes, the don't copy that floppy video.

[LAwLz]

If its not available in your country, under Australian legislation (dunno about elsewhere) is not piracy

Australia is part of the Berne convention so I am pretty sure it is illegal if the content originates from another country also in the Berne convention. If you are in a country like let's say Australia, and download for example anime that's not licensed in Australia, then it still counts as an illegal act because both Australia and Japan are part of the Berne convention, so the copyright in Japan applies to you and the anime you are downloading.

 

There are also a ton of other intentional copyright agreements you have to take into consideration, and Australia is in all of them.

 

 

By the way, 99.9% of the people reading this message will be breaking international copyright laws. My avatar is the property of KyoAni and by opening this website you have saved a copy of their intellectual property to your computer, this made an illegal copy of it.

"There is no way the law is that strict" you might think, but even a forum avatar might not fall under "fair use" some of the times. People have even been sued for using copyrighted images as forum avatars.

[JaeDee884]

Australia is part of the Berne convention so I am pretty sure it is illegal if the content originates from another country also in the Berne convention. If you are in a country like let's say Australia, and download for example anime that's not licensed in Australia, then it still counts as an illegal act because both Australia and Japan are part of the Berne convention, so the copyright in Japan applies to you and the anime you are downloading.

 

There are also a ton of other intentional copyright agreements you have to take into consideration, and Australia is in all of them.

 

 

By the way, 99.9% of the people reading this message will be breaking international copyright laws. My avatar is the property of KyoAni and by opening this website you have saved a copy of their intellectual property to your computer, this made an illegal copy of it.

"There is no way the law is that strict" you might think, but even a forum avatar might not fall under "fair use" some of the times. People have even been sued for using copyrighted images as forum avatars.

Australia may be in agreements, but if the copyright owners do not offer an Australian access for purchase or rental, and no one in Australia has the rights to distribution. then no copyright infringement is caused.

this doesn't include broadcasting materials. eg tv shows and movies that're not yet available elsewhere and not fallen into obscurity.

dunno about your international crud, but I know what I'm covered by under local laws and what I'm capable of doing

granted very rarely is content not available for domestic purchase so this doesn't exactly give you much content to freely download.

[Craftable124]

This isn't good because the MPAA won't say anything about why things are pirated besides people trying to steal, and the copyright abuse that goes on with the DMCA but If that song came on when people really tried to copy game discs, that'd be hilarious.

[cDNA]

Its funny how they say "you'll appreciate if the rest of us respect your work by not copying it and doing whatever we want with it" while this is what all big media company does with every movie and other thing they do... for example the grimm brothers being stolen by disney then disney protecting the hell out of the stories they stole.