The latest in the MPAA/RIAA's campaign of pure evil is a program called "What's The Diff?" The program targets middle-school children with the goal of teaching students about the liabilities of downloading music and films from the Internet. At the end of the course, students are supposed to write an essay ''to get the word out that downloading copyrighted entertainment is illegal and unethical". In exchange for being tools of the industry, students can win a trip to Hollywood or free DVDs. The program's motto is ''If you don't pay for it, you've stolen it."
Holding back the vomit, I continued reading and found this golden tidbit:
''But [the motto's] not true," said Wendy Seltzer, a senior attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. ''That may be what the MPAA would like the copyright law to be, but that's not what the law says."
The ''fair use" doctrine allows the public to use copyrighted material for educational purposes. One can use another's work to parody, review, or critique that material. You can even legally swap material, as long as it's not for commercial gain, said Seltzer. ''People tape movies on their VCRs and swap it with friends without getting arrested for piracy," she said.
That about sums it up for me as well.
Posted by dr_v at April 27, 2004 12:02 PMThat's, um... charming.
I do, however, love that they're giving away prizes of free stuff for a campaign that says, "If you don't pay for it, you've stolen it." Nothing like shooting your own message in the foot. I hope it backfires horribly on them somehow.
Posted by: Dianna on April 27, 2004 01:01 PMthe EFF person's characterization of fair use is almost as reductionist as the MPAA's slogan.
Posted by: holohan on April 27, 2004 06:48 PMWe obviously need to start a 501c3 to discuss the benifits of P2P networks with highschools. Think the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation will fund us?
Posted by: chrisr on May 10, 2004 09:47 AM