Captain Copyright Targets Kids

frank249 writes "The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency has set up a copyright education website called Captain Copyright. There is a section for kids with comic books and a section for teachers for grades 1-3, 3-6 and 6-8. An example of a grade 1 class activity: 'Present the following situation to students: Your friend is downloading a song off the Internet. In comes Captain Copyright. Ask: What do you think Captain Copyright will say? Encourage students to brainstorm. Then hand out (or read) Line Master: Some Copyright Laws.' In Canadian law it is incorrect to download a song unless you pay for it. They also neglect to mention that Canadians pay a tax on blank media that is meant to compensate artists for downloads."

For the kids.

[grub]

We have a daughter due in July (really! I'm reproducing now...) In a few years I imagine she'll ask "Daddy... who's Captain Copyright?" and I'll say "Sweetie, he's like God." She'll reply "What do you mean, Daddy, all knowing, all powerful and something to be in awe of?" "No dear," I'll reply, "a make-believe thing people in power use against the masses to keep them scared."

Re:For the kids.

[BronsCon]

Amen!

err... I mean... nevermind...

oh, to hell with it...

1) Sue 12 year olds
2) Campaign to convince people they have no rights
3) ...
4) Profit!

Infringement...

[talkingpaperclip]

Are these guys sure that "Captain Copyright" doesn't infringe on the "Captain Planet" copyright?

Re:Because there's nothing better they can be doin

[Roody Blashes]

Not grammar, or mathematics, but intellectual property and coporate interests.

I concur with your post.

Re:For the kids.

[Tackhead]

> In a few years I imagine she'll ask "Daddy... who's Captain Copyright?" and I'll say "Sweetie, he's like God." She'll reply "What do you mean, Daddy, all knowing, all powerful and something to be in awe of?" "No dear," I'll reply, "a make-believe thing people in power use against the masses to keep them scared."

Close, but no cigar.

"Captain Copyright? I remember that site! It was where a bunch of Farkers and SA Forum Goons downloaded a huge library of source images [captaincopyright.ca] for the funniest set Photoshop parodies ever!"

All Your Kids Belong to Us!

[Nom du Keyboard]

The propaganda is getting blatant. It least this one is not my tax dollars at work. Maybe there's a reason the almighty Canadian dollar coin is referred to as the loonie.

Logo faux-pas

[Beniamino]

Boing Boing helpfully points out [boingboing.net] (SFW) the similarity between the Captain Copyright logo and Slashdot regular goatse.cx (which I will not link).

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Orwell Anyone? Or Godwin???

[Nom du Keyboard]

hitler also knew that the best way to change a national mind was to start with the children...

My God! Second post, and by Godwin's Law [wikipedia.org] this discussion is already over!

Of course this begs the question of will the record companies last until these kids grow up into nice, well-controlled, consumers.

And when did 'hitler' become a lower-case adjective?

Infringing?

[lexDysic]

As pointed out on Boing [boingboing.net] Boing [boingboing.net], Captain Copyright is apparently blessed with the power of copyright immunity. Text on his website appears to be directly lifted from Wikipedia, and of course much of the iconography has been around since before the Captain himself. Maybe the Captain's alter ego is a pirate? Arrrrrr...

--
Think! It ain't illegal yet!
George Clinton

Re:I don't condone or support piracy at all....

[CosmeticLobotamy]

"Word got around that the copied textbooks weren't such a great deal after all and by the end of the semester the store that sold them was out of business."

Where's the little picture of Captain Copyright standing outside the burnt-out building with a gas can?

Re:Orwell Anyone? Or Godwin???

[Minwee]

"And when did 'hitler' become a lower-case adjective?"

When he failed to defend his trademark and it became generic. "Escalator", "Yo-yo", "Shredded Wheat", and now "Hitler" are prime examples of trademarks which have fallen into the public domain through abandonment or poor defense.

Where Hitler went wrong was not through lack of defense (you should have seen his army of lawyers), but through misuse of the Hitler trademark. Where Third Reich productions threw around the name Hitler as though it were a noun they should have used it as an adjective from the start and emphasized it to set it apart from the surrounding text. Using phrases like "Hitler conquered half of Europe" is just asking for trouble. "Hitler® brand World Domination conquered half of Europe" makes it clear what the brand name is and that it is a registered trademark.

Re:Orwell Anyone? Or Godwin???

[pluther]

And when did 'hitler' become a lower-case adjective?

god only knows.

Just for fun...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just for fun, try the following link [captaincopyright.ca].

It will fill up their "hack attempt" logs with silly messages :-) And maybe it will encourage them to find a more useful and less stupid way to detect "hack attempts" than whether or not there happens to be a question mark somewhere in the URL.

That or call them up and ask why they're giving out all their copyrighted materials for free. Aren't they compensating the artists per copy!? Why, that's ***STEALING***! And don't anyone try to rationalize it away by pointing out that they got paid *once* for their work--all IP holders deserve compensation any time someone so much as *thinks* about their work, you communist bastards, anything else is rationalizing away a serious felony! :-)

Re:Next : Canadian Govt. & RIAA publish new mo

[Cylix]

My favorite...

I am.... Captain Condom!

Excerpt from the quiz for kids

[binkzz]

"Yes - Once your poem is in a fixed and tangible form, you have copyright in your poem. You do not have to register your creation with the Copyright Board to have copyright."

I'm sure kids will learn tons with these fun quizes and games.

Torrent?

[Mooga]

So who is going to pre-release a torrent of all the Captain Copyright Comics?

frank249 I hope you typed that quote out longhand.

[Mateo_LeFou]

" iv. You are not permitted to copy or cut from any page or its HTML source code to the Windows(TM) clipboard (or equivalent on other platforms) onto any other website. " Intellectual Property Notice and Disclaimer [captaincopyright.ca]

Captain C/The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency,: Please do not sue me, but I copied and pasted the URL into the link above. If this is a violation, have the Swedish police sieze Slashdot's servers.

Copyrights Do Expire, Don't They

[buckhead_buddy]

The copyright on a number of songs first graders might still find entertaining have expired. Things like:

• Old McDonald
• I've Been Working on the Railroad
• 99 Bottles of Beverage on the Wall
• Ring Around the Rosie
• She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain
• and many, many more

Yes, the performances of the songs may be copyrighted, but even that isn't a certainty. There is a Public Domain into which the performing artist may release their performance.

If the tune, lyrics, and performance aren't protected intellectual property then the first grader should call the police and have Captain Copyright arrested for child molestation. Okay, there wasn't any sexual molestation involved, but a man in a skin tight costume who constantly barges in on first graders in their homes will have a very difficult time convincing a jury of that fact.

But is it going to be more effective than

[Goonie]

Don't Copy That Floppy [wikipedia.org] :)

Re:and now the circle is complete

[Immercenary_2000]

OMG PONIES!!!!111one!!!
Sorry, couldn't resist

Oh dear god.

[foreverdisillusioned]

Great. Now I've got this going through my head:

"RIAA!"

"MPAA!"

"Fear!"

"Uncertainty!"

"Doubt!"

"GO COPYRIGHT!"

"By your powers combined, I AM CAPTAIN COPYRIGHT!"

Re:For the kids.

[ShieldW0lf]

I know how to deal with this. We need to get the feminists on board.

First, we explain how the internet makes culture and information plentiful goods, and how if the government didn't criminalize sharing it, market forces would in short order make them freely available to everyone in as much abundance as they wished.

Then we explain how the whole copyright thing is a conspiracy by a bunch of Rich White Men to tie access to culture, education and information to earning power as a covert way of keeping it away from women, who have less earning power. (Don't worry if that last bit is true or not, they'll accept it.)

Then we can just sit back, watch the fireworks, and in no time copyright will be toast.

(Just don't let the chinese hear this logic, or they might start enforcing copyright over there)

I for one fully support this campaign

[rsilvergun]

as a kid, the best sure-fire way to get me interested in doing something was to make an 'edutainment' comic book against it. I mean, jesus, this crap's down there with Johnny Turbo!

Re:I don't condone or support piracy at all....

[Anonymous Coward]

...but this comic is lame. Look at this page and the previous one. Somebody gets an A just because they didn't use a bootleg version of the textbook? Give me a break.

I dunno. It kind of left me with the impression that she blew Captain Copyright to get her A. Sounds reasonable.

Re:Oh dear god. - MOD UP PARENT - FUNNY!

[Mooga]

"Captain Copyright! He's our hero! Going to bring all our money down to ZERO..."

Re:Infringing?

[chrispl]

Not to mention the goatse [captaincopyright.ca].

Based on a Fallacy

[czarangelus]

The best part is it's based on a fallacy to begin with. In the comic, the school bully comes, steals his artwork, and begins selling copies for a quarter in front of the teacher's lounge. In the case of file sharing, no money changes hands! What a bunch of horse crap.

Re:OK ... reproducing?

[vought]

Captain Copyright

PADUCAH, KY, AP Wire -

Captain Copyright was arrested today but Federal Authorities on counterfeiting charges. In an ironic turn of events, the former crusader for corporate intellectual property rights was caught red-handed making counterfeit $20.00 bills with a laser printer, an iron, and a hair dryer.

When asked, friends were solemn about Copyright's descent into ruin. "He was such a nice guy until the RIAA stopped sending checks", notes once close friend Hayla Bullets. "Then, he just started drinking, grumbling a lot, and working in his machine shop.

Attorneys for Mr. Copyright could not be reached for comment.