I love how on one had you are slapped and on the other hand you are comforted... nice.
http://techdirt.com/articles/20080213/174238252.shtml---cut:
Microsoft Takes Another Shot At Brainwashing Kids On Copyright Laws
from the educate-who? dept
One of the popular myths coming from the industries who rely on the copyright crutch is that unauthorized content sharing is really an "education" issue. For years, they've insisted that if kids just understood copyright laws, they wouldn't engage in file sharing. To that end, the RIAA likes to claim that its questionable legal campaign is really just an educational effort and has nothing to do with squeezing money out of people with threatening letters on weak evidence. The various lobbying groups have all set up "education" programs that generally appear to be more like brainwashing programs. They tend to be excessively one-sided and students see through the programs pretty quickly.
Microsoft itself got into the IP propaganda game a few years ago with a contest asking kids to create a video about how important intellectual property rights were. As if to drive home the point, any video you submitted to Microsoft became its exclusive property. Apparently, that little education campaign wasn't enough, as Microsoft is now announcing a brand new propaganda education campaign targeted at teens, kicked off with a bogus study claiming that teens would stop unauthorized sharing if they only knew about copyright laws.
Now it's no surprise that many people don't understand what the real purpose of copyright is -- but companies like Microsoft are just as bad in not understanding the real purpose of copyright as the teens they accuse of not understanding it. Given all the previous attempts at "educating" children, this new effort won't get very far, but perhaps we can get together and craft an "education" campaign targeted at the various industries who insist we need to be educated on copyright. Anyone want to help? We can kick it off with an explanation of fair use. Then follow it up with an economics lesson about how artificial scarcity limits markets. Perhaps we can even dig into the ways that companies like Microsoft admit they benefit from unauthorized use, while holding a special lesson on how unauthorized use and innovation often work hand in hand. To kick it all off, we can put out a study showing how poorly execs in struggling industries understand copyright. I'm sure that would go over well.
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