[Infowarrior] - Coming soon to kindergarten class: antipiracy ed

[Richard Forno]

Coming soon to kindergarten class: antipiracy ed
Posted by Anne Broache
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9789821-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&t
ag=2547-1_3-0-20


WASHINGTON--Tired of their antipiracy messages being ignored by the teen-
and college-age set, the entertainment industry is attempting to
indoctrinate far younger disciples.

Representatives from the Entertainment Software Association, the video game
industry's trade group, and the Canadian Recording Industry Association shed
some light on their strategies at an antipiracy summit hosted by the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce here.

"In the 15- to 24-year-old (range), reaching that demographic with
morality-based messages is an impossible proposition...which is why we have
really focused our efforts on elementary school children," said Ric Hirsch,
the ESA's senior vice president of intellectual property enforcement. "At
those ages, children are open to receiving messages, guidelines, rules of
the road, if you will, with respect to intellectual property."

The ESA has gone so far as to develop a copyright education curriculum
geared toward the kindergarten through fifth-grade set. Since 2005, the
organization has been trying to find ways to get teachers to incorporate its
tenets into their everyday lessons, although Hirsch did not say how
successful that effort has been. The components, which include charts,
teachers guides, lesson plans and a wall poster imploring students to "Join
the © Team," are also now available online.

The reason for targeting youth at that age is that they're at an "inflection
point" where they're just learning how to use computers and the Internet,
and the classroom seems a perfect opportunity for delivering copyright
education, Hirsch said. The ESA devised its own curriculum after finding
"very little out there in the form of institutional education addressing
this issue," he said.

The video game industry isn't alone in trying to infiltrate classrooms with
its antipiracy messages, although it appears to be targeting younger kids
than some of its counterparts. The Recording Industry Association of America
offers a similar set of curriculum ideas, but none of them appears to target
students younger than third grade. The Motion Picture Association of America
last year released a "Respect Copyrights" curriculum (PDF) tailored to
merit-badge-seeking Boy Scouts in the Los Angeles area.

Some fair-use advocates have argued the copyright-dependent industries send
contradictory messages through such materials. They've criticized, for
example, an RIAA video intended for college students that they argue gives
mixed messages about when it's legal to copy music for personal listening or
to share with friends.

The Canadian record industry group, for its part, would like to work with
provincial governments to help schools develop their own copyright-minded
curriculums "so it's organic...it's not something they're tacking on," said
Graham Henderson, the group's president.

Youthful voices may be able to help to influence parents who themselves
don't set such a great example on the copyright-protection front, much in
the same way some kids have been able to pressure adults to stop harmful
habits like smoking, he suggested.

Parents--and mothers in particular--do represent an important audience to
educate, though, Henderson added. That means planting messages in places
that may seem less-than-traditional, such as women's interest or general
parenting magazines, he said.

I don't know about you, but I have to wonder what's next: exposing babies
still in the womb to antipiracy audio messages, a la the so-called Mozart
effect?