Come See How Excited Everyone Is For The Latest UK Educational 'Don't Pirate' Campaign

from the sooooooo-excited dept

Thu, Jul 16th 2015 6:57am — Timothy Geigner

If you drop the search term "educational campaign" into the Techdirt search field, it's crazy how many story links pop up. When it comes to educating the public, particularly the youth, about how super-important copyright is and how goddamned terrible pirating is, the effort appears to have been going on for forty years or so. Given how every indication from our pro-copyright friends and the entertainment industries have been of the "sky is falling" variety, I would have thought that there would be some acknowledgment that the whole educational campaign thing didn't work. Or maybe that the lesson plan sucked. Some kind of recognition of failure.

If that's the case, you sure wouldn't know it hearing how pants-crappingly excited everyone over in the UK is for yet another round of educational nonsense coming from the entertainment industry.

The education programme will target 16-24 year-olds, their parents, those responsible for household internet connections, as well as others who influence young people’s attitudes to accessing content. To capture the attention of these audiences, public relations firm Weber Shandwick will lead an integrated consumer, corporate and social PR campaign, with activities scheduled to start later this summer. Creative Content UK is working with Atomic London on advertising creative. Media planning and buying will be directed by ZenithOptimedia.

The campaign is part of the Creative Content UK initiative, a ground-breaking partnership between content creators and Internet Service Providers (ISPs), together with an education campaign part-funded by the government, aimed at helping reduce online copyright infringement.

In other words, the public is footing part of the bill for letting the entertainment industries and ISPs tell them how great their products are and how horrible the bill-footing public is because piracy exists. And it will come from such organic methods like hiring PR and advertising firms. How could this possibly fail?

Well, probably the same way that the RIAA's educational campaign failed. And the one that was done in Sweden failed. And the USPTO's educational campaigns, too. They fail because they're almost universally inaccurate and misleading propaganda hits that fail to connect with children far too savvy to fall for scare-tactics. Meanwhile, innovation stalls because the entertainment industry is busy reaping failure with the K-12 crowd.

But, still, that excitement.

Janis Thomas, Education Project Manager, Creative Content UK, said: “We are delighted to have three highly-experienced agencies on board to help us create disruptive and engaging multi-media campaigns that will connect with the aspirations of young people. This behaviour change initiative is vital to the success of the sector and will ensure that we can continue innovating and taking risks on new artists and ideas. We aim to inspire individuals to make a personal commitment to the future of the UK creative industries and to the creation of music, film, games and other entertainment, which they love so much.”

You just have to beat the buzzwords off with a stick, don't you? Kids aren't going to fall for this crap any more than they fell for the over-the-top anti-marijuana videos they showed my parents. But, hey, keep beating that dead horse if you want. Just keep it down; some of us are innovating over here.

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Filed Under: campaigns, copyright, education, piracy, uk

39 Comments

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TheResidentSkeptic (profile), 16 Jul 2015 @ 6:49am

Actually, this will work..
I hope they truly push "We aim to inspire individuals to make a personal commitment to the future of the UK creative industries and to the creation of music, film, games and other entertainment, which they love so much.”.

The result will not be what they expect; but it will work incredibly well. All these folks will be inspired to go out and do it ON THEIR OWN WITHOUT THE MIDDLEMEN.

And it will be hilarious to watch it happen.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2015 @ 7:09am

As usual the only true fix for piracy remains off the table: sell your content so that it's easily accessible and not laden with drm.

Oh well back to the bay.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2015 @ 7:25am

The content companies seem to go out of their way to alienate everyone they come into contact with. Witness a CBS producer, drunk on the job, berating employees for seeking union representation. The show is a children's show on CBS called "The Inspectors".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15SwF_Ww4dw
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2015 @ 7:25am

"...will ensure that we can continue innovating and taking risks on new artists and ideas."
Apparently they have lost because there are no new ideas coming from these "professionals".
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bureau13 (profile), 16 Jul 2015 @ 7:26am

Disruptive? If this isn't the worst use of an already worn-out buzzword yet, I don't know what is...we couldn't have thrown a paradigm shift in there too, while we're at it?
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2015 @ 7:29am

Oh god I hope it will reach the heights of the classic Don't Copy That Floppy.
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PaulT (profile), 16 Jul 2015 @ 7:37am

Re:
That was my first thought. Perhaps someone should tell them that the disruption already took place, and a major reason why these problems exist is because the industries they're working for haven't caught up yet. But, hey, every conversation they're having tells them that their industries have been disrupted so that must be the buzzword to use!
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PaulT (profile), 16 Jul 2015 @ 7:39am

Re:
Don't forget "home taping is killing music" and other classics. I wonder if they're be making it so that the only people who get targeted by these campaigns are people who are consuming legal content at the time as well. Those are always fun.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2015 @ 7:43am

what A uk 'Don't Pirate' Campaign video looks like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALZZx1xmAzg
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PaulT (profile), 16 Jul 2015 @ 7:56am

Re:
Sadly the one they're spoofing wasn't much less laughable. You know, the one that only appeared as an unskippable advert every time you played your legally purchased DVDs.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2015 @ 8:02am

absolute load of bollocks!!
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2015 @ 8:06am

What crap! Useless as telling meth addicts to stop.
Oh, wait. We didn't have meth addicts before marijuana use spread... CRAP! They were right about marijuana!
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Andrew (profile), 16 Jul 2015 @ 8:24am

Re:
The one it's parodying (you wouldn't download a car etc.) was also a UK creation, for the 'Industry trust for IP awareness'. They also had fun things like faked up "actual footage from cams" (with authentic vcr tracking lines, and actual copied MST3K-esque viewers). It is what actually got me started in the field with piracyisnotacrime.com (we did manage to get one MEP to admit to basically spouting whatever was put in front of her when we pointed out her speech required time-travel, and also got the head of the British Video Assosciation [UK MPAA] to basically discredit the MPAA's famed LEK study when their own figures were significantly different.)

At least they didn't keep the other half of that campaign going though - "knock-off Nigel" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TbqBPmInjQ) - yikes.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2015 @ 8:38am

Europe is up in arms over a financial crisis and the only thing the government can think about is paying more of your limited monetary resources for foreign media not critical to daily survival.

Sad.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2015 @ 8:47am

Re:
Those citizens voted them in, let them suffer, I have no reason to feel sorry for people that are oppressed by their own hands, and neither should you.

Well, I do feel sorry for the children, they are still victims in this.
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dfed (profile), 16 Jul 2015 @ 9:04am

It's very clear that they've moved on from not downloading cars to not downloading a clue.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2015 @ 9:37am

Re: Re:
Intentionally thick or just a bad reading day?

Not quite sure what your comment is aimed at but I'll cover the 2 likely suspects.

1) Europe did not vote for the fallout of the american housing market. Nor did they as a whole or even a majority vote on any of the current situations (ie it's pretty much only the Germans and the Greeks who have a say in current goings on.)

2) This initiative is only partially funded by the elected government, mostly its from your *AA suspects.

So yeah not really any citizens fault.
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Chris Brand, 16 Jul 2015 @ 9:48am

"This behaviour change initiative is vital to the success of the sector".
Because "change the behaviour of my customers" has always been a great business plan.
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JoeCool (profile), 16 Jul 2015 @ 9:51am

Re: Re: Re:
I think that post was at least partly sarcasm. There's always a tendancy on this forum that any time a US Congress-critter does something stupid, we get a bunch of "you voted them in, you deal with it" posts. Nevermind that the critter in question was "voted" in on maybe 40% of the 10% of people who voted, and was the "best" of several truly terrible choices on the ballot.

So I think this was just someone capitalizing on chance to use that on some Euro-folks for a change as often as it tends to be used on US.
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nasch (profile), 16 Jul 2015 @ 10:12am

Re:
Disruptive? If this isn't the worst use of an already worn-out buzzword yet, I don't know what is...

Right on. I suspect this person doesn't actually have a clue what "disruptive" means, but has heard it used a lot to describe exciting new Silicon Valley startups, so figured it probably means exciting and new.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2015 @ 10:55am

We spend our entire lives teaching children to share - only to tell them it's bad to do it when it comes to music and movies....

It's cool though, we will just continue to waste untold billions of dollars desperately holding on to archaic business models to lock all that creativity back up and make sure the people responsible for it barely see any profits. Good job team! Glad we got 3 'successful' marketing teams in on this one.
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nasch (profile), 16 Jul 2015 @ 11:08am

Re:
It's cool though, we will just continue to waste untold billions of dollars desperately holding on to archaic business models to lock all that creativity back up and make sure the people responsible for it barely see any profits.

How much does it cost to stuff a genie back into a bottle?
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tanj, 16 Jul 2015 @ 2:10pm

Re: Re:
It doesn't cost me anything to ask you to do it.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2015 @ 3:43pm

Indoctrinate the children! Pirates are terrorists!
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FastBikeCharger, 16 Jul 2015 @ 4:30pm

I know it's the UK "over there"
IN THE US FOR A JURY DUTY HEADS UP

Compared to the Banksters. A criminal should only PAY a $1.50 fine for stealing a 150 HUNDRED AND FIFTY thousand dollars. (non-violent e.g. no harmed people)

I AM THE END OF YOUR TREASON ONE WAY OR THE OTHER
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Karl (profile), 16 Jul 2015 @ 5:26pm

Re:
we couldn't have thrown a paradigm shift in there too, while we're at it?

Now, that's some out-of-the-box thinking! How can we apply that to growth hacking our smarketing and viral advertainment advocacy?
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2015 @ 5:42pm

Pirate Madness?
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Dr Evil, 16 Jul 2015 @ 6:09pm

Response to: Anonymous Coward on Jul 16th, 2015 @ 10:55am
we also teach our kids to not let strangers touch them in private places, then TSA them.
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Dr Evil, 16 Jul 2015 @ 6:14pm

let'em be
meh... let the AA's continue doing what they are doing.. it gives us fun stuff to talk about. I don't personally associate with stupid people and companies, but I do like reading about their antics. note that I have discussed file sharing with my children and expressed that once there is one or more convenient, easy to use, fairly priced, non-streaming / DRM free alternative to free (shudder) , then I fully expect them to pay for their downloads. They all indicated that the ONLY reason they acquired content the way they did was because they could not acquire and use it their way. bright sprouts! and the reason for my belief that we will win one day.

ciao...
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Steve (profile), 16 Jul 2015 @ 8:03pm

If one accepts the premise that the purpose of the Program is not public education, but rather being seen to be reasonable & righteous (as a precurser to unreasonable & litigious), then it all makes sense.
It's like a violent husband saying "you made me do this".
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Mark Wing, 16 Jul 2015 @ 8:11pm

It's exactly like DARE. They start believing their own BS and the hyperbole just spirals out of control. But by that time they are all in, and it's so ludicrous that they are achieving the opposite intended effect.

To where eventually the kids just politely nod to their fuckwittery. "Turn my parents in for smoking a joint, uh huh." "Downloading a movie supports terrorism, uh huh." and they call it a success because everyone is half-nodding. They're trying to brainwash the kids but kids are not stupid. This kind of awesome education campaign just makes them more apathetic than they already are.
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Uriel-238 (profile), 17 Jul 2015 @ 2:09am

I grew up to learn that most of what I was taught in school was propaganda...
...and often blatant lies.

Learning the truth behind such matters and feeling wittingly betrayed by my respective authorities (parents, teachers, administrators, businesses) is something that's defined much of my attitude as an adult.

I'm a single (and probably singular) example but the 90s and aughts kids are becoming even more cynical sooner than I did. If what they want is another generation of cynics that expect big government and big media and big corporations to just lie at them...well, they seem to be on the right track.
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Klaus, 17 Jul 2015 @ 3:19am

Re: Re:
They need to maximize their synergies into win-win scenarios.

I'd like to say that's from Dilbert but I've got this horrible feeling it's one of mine...
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Jul 2015 @ 3:58pm

Call it what it is

CONDITIONING Campaign
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Jul 2015 @ 4:00pm

Lies, slander, bullshit one sided arguments and figures.....Campaign
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Jul 2015 @ 4:03pm

Re:
Oh, and the mockery Campaign

On behalf of corporations
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Jul 2015 @ 4:10pm

Imagine a salesman pitching you a product inferior to what your currentle using..........now call it a "Copyright Campaign"
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Jul 2015 @ 4:16pm

Probabably gonna include an upbeat tempo, trending words, or what the "cool" kids are saying, sexy sexy maybe which would be VERY inappropriate, finished with "join the army"

I love the smell of conditioning in the morning.........afternoon, evening..........and night
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Jul 2015 @ 4:20pm

i think they mispelled Inovation Cock Blockers Campaign....
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