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Sixth-graders in American Fork, Utah, will start their journey to middle school on Tuesday with a warning from the director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office about the ills of illegally downloading music, movies and games from the Web.
Director Jon Dudas is scheduled to deliver this year's commencement speech at Legacy Elementary School, situated in the suburbs south of Salt Lake City.
"Under Secretary Dudas will remind students that downloading and copying music, movies and video games without...the artists' or copyright holders' permission is an illegal activity," his agency said in a statement.
"Dudas will also talk to the children about the importance of intellectual property and describe the value of patents, copyrights and trademarks in our economy," the statement continued.
It could make for a long day for the kids, but the legal ramifications of illegal file trading are real. The Recording Industry Association of America has sued hundreds of children for copyright infringement related to music downloading.
See more CNET content tagged:
file-trading, Utah, children, music, games
Will they tell students to go look for software or music whose creators have agreed to copying (such as FOSS or with Creative Commons license?). Will they encourage schools and school districts to prefer software that their students can download LEGALLY from the web? Will they educate students about the need to explicitly stating copyright permissions for whatever they create and don't expect to profit on? (such as in attaching Creative Commons or GPL license before abandoning creations, to give tham their own lives...)
I would send the kids to read Lessig's "Free Culture" (well, perhaps not 6th graders. but certainly 10th graders. Perhaps someone would want to create a "light" version of that book for kids, and perhaps another "light" biik just for thosae adults who prefer light reading).
And would they tell the kids about the ills of illegally registering patents that are void in order to abuse the high costs of the legal system? (such as in "building a patent potfolio" for the purpose of settling future cases out of law. I would like to see someone going behind bars for knowingly witholding information about prior art from the patent office on pending patent requests. That would make people (if not corporations) much more careful about what they submit to the patent office).
Yah know the more I hear about Utah the more I?d sooner get a lobotomy (Which sounds like it?s a mandate in certain portions of that state.) then move to that psycho state. No offense intended to those who are at least somewhat moderate.
individually, the folks are very nice (still have a lot of friends that
live there)-- from a government stand point, it's a much uglier
picture.
Utah is a great example of what happens when you bring
religion into the government.
- You have only one party in control of everything.
- You have the likes of Orrin Hatch (who things he's a singer
because he pressed a CD) hanging out as Senator for over 25
years.
- You have the Mormon Church consulting on issues instead of
the public.
- The majority Mormon values oppress the minority non-
Mormons (with some actually saying that if you don't like it --
then leave)
When will our legislators, politicians, the RIAA and all others learn THAT ANYTHING THAT CAN BE DONE DIGITALLY, WILL BE DONE AND FILE-SHARING/DOWNLOADING IS NEVER GOING TO GO AWAY.
If the music industry really cares about its future I suggest they make immediate alliances with people like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, etc. and get with the program. The futue isn't in CD sales...the iPod has shown us that.
Steve Meyer
President - Smart Marketing
Publisher - DISC&DAT - A New Media Newsletter
Digital Editor, www.allaccess.com
Las Vegas, NV
E-mail: stephennmeyer@earthlink.net
"closed". What she forget to mention is that it is only the DRM (that
RIAA forced on the Apple Store) that is in a closed format. Without
RIAA's DRM requirement, the other formats supported (MP3 and
AAC) are all open.
She now appears to be promoting Microsoft's "choice" (which is to
say anything as long as it is licensed from Microsoft)). A clear sign
these people simply sell themselves to the highest bidder.
model and need a new one, it recruits the government to spread its
propaganda.
Maybe we can make the laws so strict that it will guarantee jail time
for the little 6th graders! That'll teach 'em!
of the PTO, shich has nothing to do with
copyright, will give a lecture to children about
intellectual property? It's pretty clear that
the speaker isn't knowledgable about the subject
if he uses the term "intellectual property"
which is a marketing term and unrelated to US
law (copyright is not property, neither is a
patent or trademark).
Further, he is clearly pushing a corporate
agenda. He focuses on the illegality of
downloading (in fact, it's not the downloading
that is illegal, it's the distribution), while
not mentioning what the purpose is of copyright
(hint: it's not to make a profit). He implies
that permission of the copyright holder is
required, but doesn't mention at all problems
like: you can't generally tell who the copyright
holder is or if you have permission to copy and
distribute, and that there's as much free
content as not.
The message should be: "Avoid the media, avoid
media companies, and don't listen to
contemporary music unless you want to loose your
house and go to jail. You can't possibly
understand your rights, and the system is
designed to make it impractical to exercise
them. Well-funded corporations are buying-off
politicians in order to legislate themselves the
sole arbiters for information dissemination.
Mean people suck. MPAA and RIAA member companies
are mean people."
That messages is catchy and I think the kids
could get it.
Can anyone who's posted here, that thinks file-sharing is OK - pledge to work for me, 1 day a week, for free ?
I create software for a living. If you want my product, you pay for it - End Of Story.
If you had done your homework, you'd already know this.
children to not engage in copyright
infringement. In the US, this is a VERY
different thing under the law (as different as
taxation and homicide).
The problem here is that the people listening to
him might think he's an authority on the subject
or that what he tells them is true. In fact,
this particular speaker is aware that file
sharing is not ipso facto infringement, that the
law in the US does not have the concept of
'intellectual property', and that in the US
infringement is not theft. The speaker doesn't
point out that all computer files are
copyrighted, but only a small portion of them
have restrictions on their distribution, and
fewer still require explcit permission to
distribute; and he doesn't point out that in the
US we have 'orphaned works' (things still under
copyright but without a copyright holder to
obtain permission to use the work), and we don't
keep track of copyright holders at all, so in
practical sense you can never really know what
rights you have with regard to anything.
I suppose the reason it's offensive is because
he, a civil servent, is using his office to
advance an industrial agenda to the detriment of
children and lying to them about what the law
says and what their rights are. What if they do
take home the message "thou shalt not steal"? A
good message to be sure, but then they've not
learned anything about copyright and have no
useful information on the subject.
The children are in 6th grade. They ought to
know that the intended purpose of copyright is
not to allow people to profit from their
creations, but rather to prevent those with the
means of distributing them from excluding those
works from distribution, or assuming credit for
their creation. The law is not there to protect
anyone's job. He didn't even mention that each
one of those 6th graders holds copyright over
every picture they've drawn and every story
they've committed to the page -- a fact that
they'd love to here (and the really smart ones
might even ask why the US has a mandatory
copyright policy, or even extra-consitutional
extensions to the terms).
Even the MPAA recognizes that downloading a file
is nearly impossible to claim as infringment and
distributing a file isn't always clear cut
either (which is why they concentrate on bulk
distributors). Copying a CD for a friend, for
example, would not generally be considered
infringement.
What's there to debate? Teaching these children at a younger age not to steal music is a good thing.
redistributed the music. If they downloaded it
and didn't redistribute, it probably wouldn't
qualify.
Copyright infringement is an intentional tort,
theft is criminal act. A 6th grader should have
had at least one civics class that touched on
the difference.
It's hard to see what the speaker's intent was
in intentionally confusing the issue for the
children and presenting the content market view
rather than the legal or government view. The
speaker is a civil servent, after all.
- 6th grader can show us how RIAA pays off politicians
- by bobby_brady May 24, 2005 8:48 AM PDT
- that would be also a great lesson.
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