UK Schools to Indoctrinate Respect for IP Laws?

4/3PI*R^3 writes: "Alan Docherty, the editor of Internet Freedom News has an interesting piece in Salon's Technology & Business section. Apparently, the Creative Industries Task Force wants teenagers in the UK to learn the evils downloading MP3's, e-mailing newspaper articles, and exchanging JPEGs. As quoted from Prof. Jessica Litman of Wayne State University, "Many of them believe, for example, that if you buy a CD, you buy the right to share it." Minds are so much easier to manipulate when they are young." Heh. For the record, since I've read some of Litman's work, I should point out that her statement quoted here is definitely intended to be ironic.

1984

Wasn't 1984 set to happen in Britain? Kind'a prophetic, if you ask me. Well this comment would have been more appropriate for an article about the omnipresent cameras, but indoctrination is also quite Orwellian.

Re:FYI, your education is copyrighted.

I am a school governor here in the UK, and the problem is more deep-seated than you might think.

We now have a hugely prescriptive National Curriculum that dictates what must be taught and how many hours should be spent on certain subjects. All of this is coupled with enormous amounts of paperwork.

The result has been to narrow the subjects taught to UK kids as a whole, and to remove much of the flair with which some of these subjects were taught. Not surprisingly, we now have a teacher shortage as well.

"New Labour" here in the UK appear committed to mass-producing corporate drones with as little individuality as possible, and at the lowest possible cost - our Education services are woefully underfunded and stretched to the limits. For example, my own school will now be renting the taps (faucets) in the kids toilets because it will save us a few pounds over the next few years. Our 10 year olds are being taught in classes of 36-37 kids. And our school is succesful, over-subscribed, and turning away applicants!

At this rate, it won't be long before they are insisting on Japanese-style "rote" education in enormous class rooms.

Missing the point slightly..

The point remains that breaching copyright is still against the law. Just because you're ripping off a corporation, it doesn't become ok.. nor does it change from an being an illegal activity to a moral anti-capitalist gesture.

I still fail to understand why people would rather use a product illegally while complaining about the ethics of that product's sale, rather than just finding an alternative solution or method of purchase. If you feel you're being taken for a ride over CD prices, buy them online, import them, whatever. By all means take a stand, but don't actively make the problem worse..

Being in small bands and struggling to get by gives you a new perspective on this isuue - you realise that people have no sense of proportion and won't stop to think 'this person is operating on virtually no funding from a backroom, I think I'll help to financially support him in return for the product he worked hard to produce'. Once they get into the habit of taking copies of everything, we all suffer. Who do you think is less likely to be harmed by this behaviour - Joe Public, or BigBadCorporation(tm)? And who, out of those two would you really like to see prosper, due to the often innovative and exciting products they produce?

Exactly.

So maybe it would be a good idea to consider exactly *why* you feel teaching children the law is a bad thing...

Some schools do the exact opposite - Xeroxing

My experiences going through the educational system here (in Sweden) and working as a lower grade teacher is the exact opposite of what this article lays out. Long before there was internet there were xerox machines, wildy used in schools to give the kids an education on a stretched budget. Kindergarten: coloring books are kept in locked rooms so that the kids wont get to the originals. Because the originals are used to make copies that the kids are actually allowed to color in. Lower grade school: different kinds of excircise sheets and such are copied for the class. I think I was about ten years old when the teacher first layed out the details of the xeroxing laws (something to the effect of: no more than 30 pages or 10% whichever is lowest, may be xeroxed in more than 10 copies for classroom use), and then announcing that theyre now breaking this rule to give us an education. University: teachers compile their own anthologies of xeroxes pages from books, placing them handy next to the xerox machines for student use saying: "we could compile an official antology but that would cost a lot more, you are only allowed to read those xeroxed antologies here, but if u were to xerox them and take them home, we wouldn't know about that now would we". Thoughout every level of education the message is hammered in loud and clear: your right to an education, to knowledge, on a strained budget, comes first, not the copyright laws.

Won't be long

If you have 3 pepsis, and you drink 1 pepsi, how many cool refreshing pepsis do you have left?

Pepsi?

Partial credit!

Discussion of GPL

If the subject was approcahed from the angle that the copyright laws are there to protect the rights of the person who produced the work then I see no problem, especially if the discuss some of the various licenses under which data (eg pictures, sounds etc) and code (applications, games etc) are published. There would need to be a balance comparing some of the "closed" licenses that come with books, CD's, commercial software along with some of the Free licenses like GPL, BSD, free documentation etc. However I fear that the Free and Open licenses will get "missed out" on purpose. The UK is very backward in this respect.

The reasons why this is NOT ok.

First: Software and media piracy are illegal, and of course young people should be made aware of what is legal or not. There is a difference between this, and trying to teach children what is immoral and what is not.

The problem is that this sort of illegal activity is not in any way universially accepted as morally wrong. It is laws that were made for protecting the income of artists and corporations.. much in the same way that patent-laws were created.
It is still in some countries regarded as totally legal and within fair-use to share IP-protected material among friends as long as you don't charge for it.

I generally accept IP-laws as I believe it makes it easier to make a living out of arts, and thus making our quality of art higher. It is however a political issue, not a generally accepted truth, and thus should NOT be taught in public schools.

Morality is a personal issue, and I don't buy arguments that breaking the law is always immoral, because this would mean that doing political satire in a country where this is illegal, is immoral.

The only things that should be taught are issues that are beyond common politics. For example: murder, theft, etc..

Before tries to make the assumption; sw/media-piracy == theft, I have to say that this comparison is political as the person being "stolen" from in the act of pirating still has a copy of his/her own.. that is, it does not transfer property.

National Curriculum

Over here we have this thing called the National Curriculum. Its a requirements document listing all the things that kids have to be taught. It does not specify how or when (beyond broad 2-3 year bands) things get taught.

Naturally such a document is a magnet to everyone with an axe to grind. It seems like everyone has something they want put in the National Curriculum. Most of these things are fairly worthy, like road safety, how to apply for a job, how compound interest works, and how to extract cube roots without a calculator. Most people think that their favourite author ought to go in the English section. And so on.

As a result of all this the first version of the NC had a bad case of bloat brought on by creeping featurism. After that a revised version was bought out which was slimmed down to the things that the education academics think that kids actually need to know. Copyright law is not (AFAIK) on the list.

There is still a lot of pressure for feature creep in the NC, but the people in charge of it seem to have learned how to say "no". You still get pressure groups of one sort or another popping up and asking for their pet cause to go in the NC, but nobody takes any notice. This is just another similar suggestion, and I don't think its going to go anywhere.

Paul

Hey, That's Great.

Now all we have to do is indoctrinate respect for consumers rights into all business licenses and we're done.

Re:Indoctrination From the womb

You say "teach children morals and a sense of right and wrong and let them make their own decisions".

But, whose morals are you talking about ?

Yours ? Jack Valenti's ? Rufus Shinra ? Osama Bin Laden's ? Ghandi ? Mother Teresa (I should hope not !) ? The RIAA's ?

I don't think we should be teaching them more than the most basic morals. To a point, they all have to be subjective. I say, give them knowledge, and let them decide for themselves.

A Full Course of IT Ethics Would Be Nice

I'm all for teaching IT Ethics in school. This would, of course, include teaching our children the evils of doing any sort of work for a corporation that's repeatedly proven that it's willing to stomp your rights into the ground in the name of profit...

Re:Are they still wearing uniforms?

Well, my old school has varied it's uniform rules quite a bit in recent years:
It used to be black blazer with school crest, black trousers, white shirt + school tie, but no-one used to wear the blazers so they gave up on that rule. Girls didn't have to wear ties at first, but then a lot of stupid parents complained that it was sexist to make their boys wear ties, so they became mandatory for girls. Nowadays though, they all wear yellow sweaters and the rules seem quite relaxed. It seems that the school gave into rebellion and met halfway.

As for the brainwashing thing - we didn't all dress alike. It may look that way from a cursory glance, but to those in the school we were all making our uniforms individual - doing stuff like wearing the ties backwards so the skinny part was at the front, wearing trainers or Doc Martens instead of regular shoes, wearing t-shirts that were visible beneath the fabric of the white shirts etc. We were forced to conform, but dressed as differently as we could within limits that had been set.

I don't think that uniforms is really a big problem (and it actually makes it easier to decide what to wear each day). But trying to turn kids into perfect consumers does suck, though I doubt it'll work (see my earlier post).

Underestimating kids

I went to a UK comprehensive secondary school, and I (and all my friends) knew full well that copying software (for my old Acorn Archimedes A3000) and taping CDs that we swapped was illegal. But our allowances went a lot further if we did.

Don't assume that kids are little angels who wouldn't do something just because an authority figure tells them not to (I'd like to cite drug use and underage drinking and smoking as examples of situations where kids go out to do exactly the opposite of what they're told is wrong). You might persuade some kids to stop, but you'll probably make it more appealing to others.

Exclusitivity

Blockquoth the poster:

Just because you're ripping off a corporation, it doesn't become ok.. nor does it change from an being an illegal activity to a moral anti-capitalist gesture.

Um, these aren't mutually exclusive. The whole point of civil disobedience, for example, is to explicitly break a bad law and to be arrested for doing so, to call attention to the injustice of the law. Not that ripping MP3s is, in general, a case of civil disobedience (hint: few song-swappers actively court jail time) but it's disingenuous to equate "illegal" with "immoral" identically.

Re:Indoctrination From the womb

Blockquoth the poster:

However, it doesn't make it any less wrong to download mp3s that you didn't legally purchase. What amazes me is the /. attitude towards mp3s. I doubt most of the people who post here regularly would advocate going into a music store and stealing tapes or CDs.

Of course, the tape or CD is a physical object and your absconding with it deprives someone else of the ability to use it. MP3s are digital entities and therefore your copying it does not hinder my ability to listen to it.

Just to show that there is a difference betweeen the two, and hence, at least possible grounds for having different attitudes.

BS alert

Whether it's morally right or wrong to share MP3s/photos, the fact is that it's still illegal.

Actually there are lots of circumstances where sharing is perfectly legal, in addition to being moral. Kids should be taught to understand that laws and social mores are complicated things and require the individual to apply a little critical thinking when venturing into the grey areas.

I am SO glad now that I went to a school where HD Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" was actually a required text and where there was no DARE program. Kids shouldn't be taught anything in school except academics, trade skills, arts, and whatever you'd call what it is you learn in Phys. Ed.

Morals, right and wrong, how to deal with bullies, how to say no to drugs are all lessons that belong at home. And if the parents don't teach them this stuff, well tough. Then the kids figure it out for themselves. As a parent it disgusts me how much time I have to spend with my child going over what she "learned" in school and applying critical thinking skills to it so that my daughter has a chance to form her own opinions about what she's been told.

Teach about fair use

As long as they teach about fair use it is not a problem. That way it's easier for the "young" to realise how stupid DMCA-style laws are.

Re:Indoctrination From the womb

I question that they have any right to teach children what amounts to their views of the law - the laws on music copryright for example are based manily on the money and power of the RIAA and Recording Companies

The laws on copyright are quite clear about the legality of ripping and redistributing MP3s for the use of others who do not own the product - it is illegal ! You may not agree with the law, but the law is unambiguous here.

You might also think that stealing money from rich people should belegal, and you might justify that by arguing that some rich people do bad things, screw their employees, engage in morally questionable actions, blah blah...but you would be a fool if you believed it was legal.

As for argument that we should stop trying to "teach children morals and a sense of right and wrong"...I suppose you think that educating young people about what rape is, and offering any opinion about, say, forcing non-consensual sex on a drunken teenage girl would be wrong too.

Re:Missing the point slightly..

Essentially ignoring copyright laws can be a form of civil disobedience

Sure. And if I ever get nabbed for allegedly violating the GPL, I am going to cry 'civil disobedience' too. And alleged GPL violations of the GPL by, say, the Chinese - that's an entirely valid expression of nationals of a foreign country exercising their own rights to self-determination.

Protecting profits...once again.

I have to wonder which big media company thought this idea up...I'd be very surprised if the school system came up with it on their own.

Kids putting copyright symbols on drawings and papers? What's next...intellectual property contracts within a school system?

Before the DMCA came along and gave draconian legal controls to big companies, copyrights served only to protect the economic interests of content authors, granting a temporary monopoly to foster creative works in writing and the arts which were supposed to eventually be released into the public domain. They used to work just like patents...and fortunately patents still expire 17 years.

Regardless, I hope to see this one fall hard. I remember copying tapes on my dual-deck boom box as a kid, and it didn't hurt anyone. What the major media companies have to do is add enough value to their content to make the package worth buying.


/* ---- */
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7)

No big deal

When you cut through the rhetoric all the article is saying is that a minor governement task force has suggested including IP as part of the "citizenship" part of the national curriculum which is being introduced.

Realistically its got little chance of making it onto the curriculum ahead of more pressing matters (discrimination, vandalism, drugs, debt, etc.).

Even if it did slip in there for a half-hour lesson I hardly think the teachers are going to suddenly develop brain-washing powers of indoctrination just for that moment - British children have been ignoring what their teachers say for centuries and I doubt if they are going to change now.
It might even make a few of them think about an issue everyone tends to ignore - whatever conclusions they eventually come to this is a good thing.

--
Nic

*Sigh*

"Many of them believe, for example, that if you buy a CD, you buy the right to share it."

*Sigh* Sometimes you do and sometimes you don't. This upsets me on Slashdot to no end. If it's Open Source software, yes, you do. If it's just about anything else, no you don't. There was never any written or unwritten rule that said "everything on CD's can be copied". In fact, the rule should generally be viewed as the reverse: "nearly everything on a CD should not be copied".

Of course there are exceptions to the rule. If you made a Word document that you disavowed all personal copyrights to, yes you can share it. If the software is Open Source, yes you can share it. But no one has a right to share music or software that is owned by someone they personally don't know, regardless of their purported grassroots-it's-a-CD-company, we-have-a-right-to "reasons". When does the grey area start and stop.

I had a friend in college who absolutely hated Napster. The reason was that he was in an independent, yet popular, band whose music was being traded for free online. The problem: the band paid in full for their CD to be recorded professionally without a record label. It was something like $500 for 50 CD's, and they only had 4 songs on each of them. This was a struggling college band. But I imagine most Napster users would have argued "How was I supposed to know they paid? I thought it was an evil record company." Again, where does the grey area start and end?

Indoctrination From the womb

Whats next - Special tape players which you place on your womb when pregnant so that the kiddies are well educated and obedient when born ?

What he's really talking about is teaching children what the corporate community considers right or wrong rather than what may be moraly correct.

Whilst i agree that many of these things may be illegal (copyright breach etc) i question that they have any right to teach children what amounts to their views of the law - the laws on music copryright for example are based manily on the money and power of the RIAA and Recording Companies who conveniently ignore the fact that they screw artists for every cent they can make and engage in morally questionable actions in the pursuit of their 'rights'

So this is something we NEED to stop - enough - lets teach children morals and a sense of right and wrong and let them make their own decisions - not give companies the right to educate them about THEIR version of the world.