School District Considers 'Anti-Piracy' Education Campaign Based On Anti-Drug Education Campaigns

from the just-say-buy? dept

Tue, Jan 12th 2010 4:37pm — Mike Masnick

Forget "just say no," and say hello to "just say buy." Copycense points out that some Scottish schools seem to think that unauthorized sharing of music and movies is analogous to using drugs, and deserves a similar sort of education plan. Of course, the entertainment industry would be more than happy to provide any one of its numerous ~~propaganda~~ educational curricula for the task. The problem, of course, is that if you are at all familiar with the subject, you would realize that unauthorized file sharing is not a societal problem like "drug use," but is a business model issue. Of course, given how (un)successful the "war on drugs" has been, perhaps it's silly to worry about an equally ridiculous "war on piracy."

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Filed Under: copyright, drugs, education, propaganda, schools, scotland

28 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2010 @ 4:44pm

the fun thing is that studies have shown that drug use among teens is lower in countries where drugs laws are lax. the US has the highest per capita drug use among teens and some of the strictest drug laws...

I think the point is that teens tend to rebel and adding copyright propaganda to the list only makes sense if you want teens to ignore it.
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:), 12 Jan 2010 @ 4:47pm

Simple Solution.

Just Say No to Copyright

Use material that give you the rights you want.
Copyleft licenses were created for that very purpose and are the faster way to counter copyright abuses.

Another catchy frase would be "Stop using that (copyrighted)crap!"

- Be copyfree with copyleft!
- Copyleft is not theft(LoL I like this one although it makes not much sense)
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2010 @ 4:49pm

Re:
Also look at the minimum legal drinking age in the US and...any college campus (or even plenty of high schools).
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Ima Fish (profile), 12 Jan 2010 @ 4:53pm

"unauthorized sharing of music and movies is analogous to using drugs"

But they are analogous. Draconian legal attempts to solve both "problems" have actually made the "problems" worse.
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Captain Swagger (profile), 12 Jan 2010 @ 4:55pm

There is one serious flaw in this plan... Kids LOVE pirates!
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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 12 Jan 2010 @ 5:11pm

Re:
THIS IS HOW IT STARTS!

You get them hooked on that first "free" song, and the next thing you know, they're buying T-shirts!

LOOOOOOOTS OF T-SHIRTS!
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Ima Fish (profile), 12 Jan 2010 @ 5:13pm

Re: Re:
That was fricken hilarious!
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ECA (profile), 12 Jan 2010 @ 5:18pm

The BEST part..
The BEST part about the drug movies..
Is that IF' the kids hadnt known about it BEFORE!!
They do now..

With anti piracy, its just SHOWING them that it can be DONE.
So they will do the SAME, and go look at WHATS happening.
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Pontifex (profile), 12 Jan 2010 @ 6:08pm

Re: Re:
Brilliant.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2010 @ 6:44pm

Re: Re:
But are they t-shirts with pictures of pizza on them?
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2010 @ 7:04pm

"Of course, given how (un)successful the "war on drugs" has been, perhaps it's silly to worry about an equally ridiculous "war on piracy.""

But there is a potential difference. Have you seen the movie American drug war? If it's the case that special interest groups/the government itself bans drugs for the purpose of selling them at monopoly prices then the war on drugs is not really directed at stopping the sale of drugs, merely at monopolizing it. Hence the alleged efforts to stop the sale of drugs are going to be unsuccessful by design. However, the attempts to stop piracy are not designed to be unsuccessful.
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Heh, 12 Jan 2010 @ 7:09pm

Cult Classic
mp3 Madness
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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 12 Jan 2010 @ 7:35pm

Re: Re: Re:
"But are they t-shirts with pictures of pizza on them?"

They could be.

Oh yes, they COULD BE!!!
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Urza9814, 12 Jan 2010 @ 7:41pm

Makes sense...
This makes perfect sense. Both are targeted at largely harmless crimes invented by the government to keep people in line. Yes, there are plenty of harmful drugs out there, but 90% of the drug education focuses on marijuana. Which is stupid. Marijuana is about as harmful as coffee. It's only illegal because a bunch of racist government officials said 'Hey, mexicans smoke weed. We don't like mexicans. Let's make weed illegal so we can arrest the mexicans.' And other drug laws were quite similar, just targeting different groups. Blacks, hippies, etc.

It'll probably work as well as the drug education campaigns too - which is not at all, really. I mean yes, the legitimate health class drug education works to an extent, but even elementary school kids can tell the propaganda from the truth. I remember when I was in elementary school there was one day a year where they'd pass out these ribbons we were supposed to wear that said "Proud to be drug free". Depending on our age we would either stab ourselves with the safety pins (kids would pin the ribbon to their hand or something), or scratch off/write in letters so it said 'Proud to be drugee' or 'Proud to be drugged' or just plain not wear the damn things. And it wasn't because any of us were doing drugs, it was just because we knew it was stupid propaganda and refused to take part in it.
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Jim, 12 Jan 2010 @ 7:44pm

I work in education, the IT side and this stuff drives me crazy. We spend so much time teaching them 'right from wrong' and sex education and all the other things they should be learning at home that there just doesn't seem like there is a focus on actually educating them. We just had a new law passed here in Ohio, it is now mandatory that we teach them about 'date violence' and abusive relationships.
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TDR, 12 Jan 2010 @ 8:38pm

Re: Makes sense...
So then, if pot is so harmless, you wouldn't mind if somebody drove while stoned. Not to mention, pot aside, how deadly legal prescription drugs can be if taken in excess and/or in combination with each other. Legality or illegality doesn't change the nature of the substance, only its connotation.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2010 @ 9:34pm

"...unauthorized file sharing is not a societal problem..."

Whether one likes a law or not, the deliberate violation of a duly enacted law is a societal problem. If you do not like a law, then use societal rules to advocate for change.
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Ed C., 12 Jan 2010 @ 10:08pm

Re:
Does your definition of "duly enacted laws" include those that can only be passed by bribery?
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interrobang!?, 13 Jan 2010 @ 3:54am

Drugs and the harm they do are mainly caused by the prohibition on them, back when alcohol when through that satage it would get highly concentrated so you transport less of it to get the same amount of people loaded. the same happens with drugs, alot of poeple would gladley stick to less powerfull drugs however because of the war on drugs they are becoming alot stronger so dealer/mules carry less of the stuff so if caught they hope they get less of a sentance.

also, with the war on drugs its mainly campaigned for by the religous right who see any form of 'vice' as a bad thing, and so try to force their view of the world onto others.

as the use of drugs increases and as the use of dubiously obtained copyrighted works increases society will start to have a different view on them, whether societies govurnments will change in accordance to societies views is another matter.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Jan 2010 @ 3:59am

Re:
So if the law required you to murder your first born and you disobeyed, is that OK?
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Jan 2010 @ 4:01am

Re:
"Whether one likes a law or not"

It's not necessarily a question of whether one likes a law or not, it's more of a question of whether a law is a just law or not. Current IP laws are unjust.
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Ima Fish (profile), 13 Jan 2010 @ 5:23am

Re: Re: Makes sense...
"So then, if pot is so harmless, you wouldn't mind if somebody drove while stoned."

God, are you retarded or what? Under your "argument" sex should be illegal, because you certainly would not want someone driving while having sex. All sports should be banned, because you certainly do not want someone driving while playing football. And most certainly sleeping should be banned, because absolutely no one should sleep while behind the wheel.

Legality or illegality doesn't change the nature of the substance, only its connotation.

Gee, you just proved Urza9814's point. Pot only has the connotation of being bad because it's illegal. Not for any objective basis.
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Ima Fish (profile), 13 Jan 2010 @ 5:24am

Re:
"then use societal rules to advocate for change"

And that's exactly the point of this website. So what's your problem?
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Mike, 13 Jan 2010 @ 5:51am

Re: Re: Makes sense...
Ridiculous. You don't ban hammers because someone MIGHT use one on someone elses head. You are trying to tell us that pot is bad because it might be misused. Religion is misused every day, should we ban it? How about your computer, or the internet... its FAR more harmful in theory than pot is. Identity theft is sooo much easier since the advent of computers... BAN THEM. By the time we get rid of all the potentially harmful things in the world, there would be nothing left.
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Marcus Carab (profile), 13 Jan 2010 @ 7:01am

Re:
But the thing is, you can be sure that their curriculum will ignore big parts of the "duly enacted law" too. I would make a sizable bet that fair use will get no more than one or two mentions in their program, and I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if it just never gets brought up at all. The law will also likely not be described in an accurate way: kids will almost certainly be told that piracy is "stealing", despite even the Supreme Court noting that they are entirely different, and no mention of the fact that copyright is supposed to benefit society AS WELL AS rights holders will ever be made.

Perhaps I'm wrong. In fact, I dare this school to prove me wrong. But I'm not holding my breath.
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TDR, 13 Jan 2010 @ 11:43am

Re: Re: Re: Makes sense...
Sorry if you guys misunderstood me, I didn't mean for my response to be taken that way. All I meant was that it just seemed like you guys were pushing for full legalization of all drugs with no regulation or oversight whatsoever. It just concerned me, but I admit it came out wrong. I do apologize for that. I understand
that marijuana, at least, does have some medicinal uses, so I can certainly see the benefit of legalization in that case.

I'm wondering, though, about other drugs - such as crack, cocaine, LSD, PCP,
meth, barbituates, etc. Do they have medicinal uses as well? I honestly don't know. How would it be beneficial to legalize them? I'm not arguing here, just asking is all. It just seems to me that it would be better to address the things that cause people to feel that drugs are the only way to feel good and cool and all that in the first place.
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ChrisB (profile), 13 Jan 2010 @ 12:58pm

Re: Re: Makes sense...
No one has ever died due to marijuana injection. It has no toxicity limit (no matter how much you eat, you can't die). I can't think of another illegal substance that isn't at least toxic at some level.
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TDR, 13 Jan 2010 @ 5:16pm

Re: Re: Re: Makes sense...
I thought marijuana was only smoked, not eaten or injected. But I admit I don't know much about the stuff, so I could be wrong. Feel free to correct me on this.
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