Totally False Propaganda About File Sharing Being Given To Students As Educational Material

from the will-the-next-pamphlet-be-about-lying-to-students? dept

Fri, Aug 22nd 2008 12:08pm — Mike Masnick

It's no secret that both the MPAA and the RIAA have created so-called "educational campaigns" for students about copyright. These educational programs are incredibly one-sided, of course, and it's amazing that many schools actually allow this sort of corporate propaganda to masquerade as educational material. Even more problematic is when an entirely separate organization, supposedly offering a non-biased educational campaign, starts parroting the propaganda. The nonprofit National Center for State Courts, whose charter apparently is as an "organization dedicated to improving the administration of justice by providing leadership and service to court systems in the United States," has done just that. As part of that, it created a set of "graphic novels" (more like a pamphlets) designed to teach students how the court system works. Except the first such graphic novel actually teaches a bunch of RIAA propaganda about file sharing that is mostly flat-out false.

Among the things that aren't true is a claim that file sharing is a city level crime that will get you arrested by the local cops, and that you can face a 2 year jail sentence and a criminal record for downloading songs. You would think that a pamphlet designed to teach kids how the courts would work would actually get the legal issues correct. But, instead, it's just a bunch of propaganda that is completely incorrect about the law.

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Filed Under: copyright, educational campaign, file sharing, propaganda
Companies: national center for state courts

46 Comments

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chris (profile), 22 Aug 2008 @ 12:26pm

propaganda is part of college life
from the STD lectures cleverly folded into biology classes to *.rights groups that hand out fliers and rush stages.

that's what college is for: getting drunk, finding outif you are a lesbian, and being exposed to people's propaganda.

the MAFIAA are just getting in on the act. if anything it opens the door for the pirate party to hand out it's own propaganda.
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Substitute teacher, 22 Aug 2008 @ 12:28pm

How DL torrents 101
1 - DL utorrent on the windows os or transmision for osx.

2- Always make sure you are behind a password protected router preferably wired.

3- Setup your torrent client and under the prefs. force stealth mode.

4 - Change your router dns settings to use open dns, with the following dns servers addresses:

208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220

5- resart the router to ensure new settings are in place

6 - Go to www.thepiratebay.org, and browse the category of DL you desire.

7 - Click the seed tab twice to ensure the DL's with the most seeds are on the top.

8 - Scroll and DL torrents to your hearts content.

9 - Quit your browser (i like firefox) and open your torrent client.

10- drag your torrent files over the client window and it will ask where to put the DL. I use an external HD, actually many now since I have so many DL's.

11- That is the end of today's lesson. There will be a POT quiz tomorrow.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Aug 2008 @ 12:45pm

1. see RIAA official walking down the street
2. place a good strong kick in the .....
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Aug 2008 @ 12:46pm

Im Troy McClure . . . .
and you may remember me from other education films such as "Asbestos the fireproof ice cream topping" or "Evolution, scheme of the devil".
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Jake Buck, 22 Aug 2008 @ 12:49pm

Re: How DL torrents 101
Why use OpenDNS? is there some level of security or anonymity it provides?
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Aug 2008 @ 12:57pm

ZeTron
Last cell in the comic -

But luckily I was caught. I say luckily because I don’t want to be someone who harms the music industry.
I thought illegal downloading and file swapping was a victimless crime.
I was wrong...

THE END
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Aug 2008 @ 1:01pm

I got this mail y'day
http://www.oit.umass.edu/copyright/quiz.html

FU!!
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chris (profile), 22 Aug 2008 @ 1:05pm

Re: Re: How DL torrents 101
Why use OpenDNS? is there some level of security or anonymity it provides?

they are not your ISP and won't be co-erced into monkeying with your DNS resolution. as dan kaminsky taught us, if you can trust DNS, you can't trust ssl, ssh, certificates, basically the entire network.

the only thing missing from the lesson is using (and updating!!!) peer guardian. forced stealth is nice, but seeing the blocked connections from media sentry and their ilk is even better.
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Kevin, 22 Aug 2008 @ 1:05pm

Grammar 101
Listen guys... I know its Friday but for the love of Pete, PLEASE check your posts? This one has many obvious grammar inconsistencies that would make a grown man cry.
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wasnt me!, 22 Aug 2008 @ 1:09pm

straight out from the scifi books
so if you cant adapt your business model in order to make profit.

brainwash and re-educate your potential customers into accept your out dated model.

sounds rather familiar.
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wasnt me!, 22 Aug 2008 @ 1:18pm

Re: I got this mail y'day
i just did the test they forget to tell you its in an alternative world ruled by the ..AA's
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David (profile), 22 Aug 2008 @ 1:18pm

D.A.R.E
Reminds me of going through the D.A.R.E and abstinence programs not too long ago.

And we will always get these programs as long as education and state are one.

Schools are the new churches... And we are required by law, at least in Texas, to send kids to these places?
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Anonymous Cowherd, 22 Aug 2008 @ 1:26pm

Hrm
"Totally False Propaganda About File Sharing Being Given To Studens As Educational Material"

So, what else is new?
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Jason, 22 Aug 2008 @ 1:40pm

STUCK
All of the options were wildly mis-worded so I left them all blank.

It wouldn't let me go to the second question.
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Ottoman Emperor, 22 Aug 2008 @ 1:40pm

Downloading illegally
Only do it in the privacy of your own room. And doing it too often will make you blind.
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avian, 22 Aug 2008 @ 1:44pm

Depressing
The fact that this is considered appropriate is depressing. Why, exactly, are these organizations allowed to impersonate sources of authority?
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Aug 2008 @ 1:47pm

As noted a few weeks ago, in some states acts comprising copyright infringement under federal law can be prosecuted under state criminal statutes. Florida statutes were used as an example.
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M@TT, 22 Aug 2008 @ 2:35pm

Re: Grammar 101
i was going to say the same thing...
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Nigel, 22 Aug 2008 @ 2:36pm

Knock-off Nigel
I'm not sure how well the adverts in the UK will deter piracy, but they certainly make me chuckle.

"He's the type of man who does things on the cheap, he gave his girlfriend a watch he found in the street. He buys knock-off DVDs, he'd rob his on gran, he scrounges his drinks what a grubby little man. He's a knock-off Nigel, he's a knoc-off nigel..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TbqBPmInjQ

You just have to chortle when you watch it, it really is quite good.
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Paul, 22 Aug 2008 @ 2:36pm

@I got this mail y'day (#7)
EVERYONE here should go there and deliberately enter incorrect answers. I did ;~)

If they are logging the quiz it will skew the results.
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Pangolin (profile), 22 Aug 2008 @ 3:04pm

"studens"
You might want to correct this spelling error.
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Conrad, 22 Aug 2008 @ 4:59pm

Get it right
"if you can trust DNS, you can't trust ssl, ssh, certificates, basically the entire network."

SSL and SSH exist specifically to deal with UNTRUSTED network infrastructure, including hijacked DNS.

Unless you deliberately bypass their protections (i.e. ignoring warnings about invalid certificates or unknown key fingerprints), you absolutely do not need to trust DNS to trust SSL and SSH.
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Luci, 22 Aug 2008 @ 5:18pm

Just wow...
Does anyone else get reminded of 'Chick Tracts' from this? If you don't know what I'm talking about check out http://www.chick.com/default.asp for some hyper-religious propaganda. Wouldn't be surprised if these pamphlets are stolen right out of the playbooks of Chick Publishing.
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Uther, 22 Aug 2008 @ 5:47pm

Password Protected Router
Do you mean WEP/WPA encrypted or simply not "admin"?

Obviously "admin" is an awful choice of password, but I've always heard that for WEP/WPA that leaving them off is a better choice because it is a possibility that someone hacks your network and then illegally downloads something. If it's encrypted, then you've got a lot harder case proving that it wasn't you.

The same goes if you're trying to get off the hook yourself - if it's unencrypted, it could've been anybody.
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Sukey, 22 Aug 2008 @ 6:41pm

Re: I got this mail y'day
I too failed the quiz. I await my beating, Master.
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Anon, 22 Aug 2008 @ 6:56pm

They charge for this crap?
Someone should put it on bittorrent so everybody can see it... :p
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Aug 2008 @ 8:47pm

Re: D.A.R.E
Schools are the new churches... And we are required by law, at least in Texas, to send kids to these places?

I can see some advantages to home schooling.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Aug 2008 @ 8:49pm

Re: Depressing
Why, exactly, are these organizations allowed to impersonate sources of authority?
M-O-N-E-Y
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Mike (profile), 22 Aug 2008 @ 9:35pm

Re:
As noted a few weeks ago, in some states acts comprising copyright infringement under federal law can be prosecuted under state criminal statutes. Florida statutes were used as an example.

Those are almost all for actually *selling* copyrighted material, not for file sharing.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2008 @ 12:32am

The B Story
It is odd that half the comic is about the eminent domain story where the city is trying to, in essense, steal houses at below market prices. They paint the justice department as the heroes which is rarely the case (with some notable exceptions, thanks Institute for Justice - ij.org). All in all, I took it more as a glimpse into the future or rather as the future envisioned by the IP crowd. This same crowd will try to steal your house.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2008 @ 1:15am

phail
This is defiantly propaganda and advertising trying to convince students not to fight the case.

if the defendants don't fight, it makes it tooo easy for the RIAA/MPAA to win their case by their own cheating ways
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mike acker, 23 Aug 2008 @ 4:24am

Re: Re: D.A.R.E
==>Schools are the new churches

when did you figure that out?
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mike acker, 23 Aug 2008 @ 4:53am

stealing
the argument I see repeatedly is simply that "copying" is not "stealing" because in the case of a copy the original stays where it was, un-affected. and so the owner of the original hasn't lost anything, hence: no harm, no foul.

Copyright law exists to produce a market for copies: books, and recordings of various sorts: music, video, computer programs, and computer games.

The market has bee protected on purpose in order to encourage development and creativity in these areas.

Today there is a massive cry for a stampede to trample the copyright law into the dust.

an occasional illicit copy of a song or track here and there won't have much affect on the market, overall. But left un-checked, the massive distribution of books, games, audio and video files over the computer net will change the overall market for these items from a basically corporate controlled environment to a freelance paradigm.

there is no reason the freelance paradigm cannot co-exist with the corporate one. we are doing that now in the open-source software area. there is no reason that music and video cannot do the same

but whether to publish freelance or to publish commercially is properly left to the creative artists.

subscribers should respect their decisions
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2008 @ 8:59am

Re: Re:
Neither Florida nor California specify "selling", "offering to sell", etc. as necessary elements of the offense. File sharing per se can get a person in trouble with state authorities.

California's statute is interesting (Section 653aa) because of a twist it contains. Generally, it requires a file sharer to provide an email address that can be read at the time of download and that identitifies the location of the file sharer.

Doubtless, "Hollywood" was behind its enactment, and that it is difficult to apply given what one can do with email addresses. However, if an address is not provided and "Hollywood" still finds you, the authority of the state can also be invoked to place a file sharer in even hotter "hot water".

The necessary elements of a particular crime vary from state to state, so what is criminal conduct in one may not be in another. The important point to note, however, is that file sharing is not necessarily just a matter of federal law.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2008 @ 9:28am

Re: Re: Re:
Another example can be found under Oregon's criminal statutes at Section 164.377, "Computer Crime". The prima facie elements of the offense are certainly broad enough to subsume file sharing withing its terms.

I do have to note that I have not made a comprehensive search of the laws of all states, commonwealths and territories of the United States. I will leave that to be performed at some future date by an academic who needs to publish something to add to his/her CV. I do believe, however, that the major lobbying groups for the "entertainment content industries" do have as one of their goals the lobbying of state legislatures to add matters such as unauthorized file sharing to the extensive laundry list of criminal conduct.

Merely as an aside, patent infringement is not a criminal act under federal law. Given how the federal courts have interpreted the issue of "federal preemption", I would not be surprised to see at some time in the future patent lobbying groups to urge such conduct be subject to criminal sanctions under state law.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2008 @ 9:31am

Re: Grammar 101
I sorry kevin I do better in future with gamar. u ok wth dat.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2008 @ 9:55am

Re: Re: Re: D.A.R.E
when did you figure that out?
When are you going to figure out how to read a thread? The author of the comment you replied to did not originate that statement, it was a quote from a previous comment.

And by the way, the shift key on your keyboard seems to be broken.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2008 @ 11:02am

Re: stealing
No foul? Copyright infringement isn't stealing but I haven't seen many arguments that it isn't a "foul". It is, in fact, a violation of copyright law. So just where have you seen it so repeatedly argued otherwise? Did you hurt your arm swinging at that straw man?
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2008 @ 12:34pm

Re: Re: stealing
I believe the original poster does agree with you, and in the beginning of his post was merely parroting much of what is posted as comments on this site. There are, unfortunately, a large number who see nothing wrong with using digital files, even though they know such files are unauthorized and in violation of the creators' copyrights.
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Bill Cole, 23 Aug 2008 @ 8:52pm

Re: Re: Re: How DL torrents 101
Why use OpenDNS? is there some level of security or anonymity it provides? they are not your ISP and won't be co-erced into monkeying with your DNS resolution. as dan kaminsky taught us, if you can trust DNS, you can't trust ssl, ssh, certificates, basically the entire network.

If you can't trust your ISP to not screw with your DNS, using OpenDNS (or trying to) is useless. Anyone who can see a DNS query packet can simply respond to it as if they were the target: no port or query number guessing necessary. It has been rumored that some ISP's are hijacking all outbound UDP port 53 packets from their customers, readdressing them to their own nameservers as a way to keep their typosquatting profitable.

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Wolfy, 24 Aug 2008 @ 6:55am

Re: Get it right
I suspect this person made a typo, and were really saying "If you CAN'T trust DNS, you can't trust..."
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Aug 2008 @ 12:19pm

"You would think that a pamphlet designed to teach kids how the courts would work would actually get the legal issues correct. But, instead, it's just a bunch of propaganda that is completely incorrect about the law."

I wonder why it is that MM posts replies when he believes that a commenter is wrong, but stops altogether when a commenter demonstrates otherwise?

Is it really that hard to admit that at least some portions of his posts may be incorrect? It is not as if the commenter is trying to get him to say "uncle".
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Mike (profile), 26 Aug 2008 @ 12:29am

Re:
I wonder why it is that MM posts replies when he believes that a commenter is wrong, but stops altogether when a commenter demonstrates otherwise?

I'm more than willing to admit when I am wrong. I'm not engaging in the comments as much this week because I'm traveling.

I also haven't had a chance to look at the details of what you pointed to for the same reason.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Aug 2008 @ 8:16am

downloading music has not yet been proven to be illegal, but it is illegal to distribute (or make available apparently) files for others to download.
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x, 28 Aug 2008 @ 3:33am

Re: D.A.R.E
nope, in texas you can homeschool your children to your hearts content.
you just have to have them in *some sort* of schooling, doesnt have to be state sponsered
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Dec 2009 @ 12:02am

Re: Re: Grammar 101
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