Why Do Copyright Maximalists Think That Lame 'Education' Campaigns Will Brainwash Children?
from the doesn't-make-any-sense dept
It happens at least once a year: some major copyright maximalist organization comes out with some sort of “copyright education campaign” targeted at children. These programs are always high on propaganda and short on facts. They rarely include full or clear explanations of things like fair use, or the true intention of copyright (benefiting the public). The latest such attempt is happening in France, where three-strikes agency Hadopi is proposing a propaganda campaign at a big kids’ event called “Kidexpo.” Numerama, who got its hands on some details of the plan, explained that the goal is to “raise awareness” of issues related to copyright and creativity.
But, here’s the thing: all of these programs seem to assume, falsely, that kids are complete idiots who can have basic common sense brainwashed out of them. That’s not the case. As we’ve seen for the better part of a decade, kids who attend these “sessions” know a lot better than the people teaching them just how ridiculous they come off, and don’t take them very seriously. No matter how many times this strategy fails, however, some clueless adult decides that kids can be brainwashed if they just try again. It’s even better when they include silly mascots.
While it’s amusing sometimes to watch the maximalists flail around like this, you have to wonder if they’ll ever recognize that kids aren’t stupid, and pushing obvious propaganda to them doesn’t make them unable to understand how technology works.
Filed Under: awareness, children, copyright maximalists, education, propaganda
Comments on “Why Do Copyright Maximalists Think That Lame 'Education' Campaigns Will Brainwash Children?”
Hey Mike- you’re described by the interviewer as a pig and corporate shill here:
http://www.theawl.com/2012/06/david-lowery-chat
How does that make you feel?
Bright side
Look on the bright side, by doing this they have less time/money to Lobby…
Y’know, I used to think kids were dumb assholes, because shit like Annoying Orange is allowed to air. But then I remember, they can also tell you things you didn’t know and didn’t think about.
Damned little goblins, they may seem like insignificant little troublemakers, but get them in a group and they’re goddamn terrifying.
preaching propaganda should be banned. what happens if any contra propaganda is proposed at the same venue? it gets refused or refuted. only one side is ever allowed to be proclaimed
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That is so horrible that I started an IndieGoGo campaign to send mike on Vacation.
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you’re described by the interviewer as a pig
Huh – you can’t even get your latin based animal adjectives right!
Says it all really…
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Feels like a lie to me. Here’s the actual quote about Mike, there:
“But the best was “David Lowery Wants a Pony” by Mike Masnick of Techdirt. The bovine willingness with which Mr. Masnick and so many, many others simply lie down in front of the corporate bulldozer is truly flabbergasting, just perversely magnificent. “[M]y focus is on what’s working in today’s market, not pining for the way things used to be,” he wrote.
Okay! And in the other corner, ladies and gentlemen, the outrageous idea that musicians be compensated fairly?just fairly, not in Midas amounts, the way the megacorps are compensated. “
Hate to tell ya, bovine is a cow or ox, not a pig. And nowhere does he use anything close to the term, “corporate shill.”
In their eyes
To them adults are just moronic freeloaders exclusively concerned with self gratification. By extension, I guess that means they think children have the brain power of lemmings. What they don’t know is lemmings are smarter then they think and so is everyone else. I guess that means they have the brain power of the proverbial lemming.
Propaganda will not work on these kids. The only way to solve copyright infringement issues is a simple SCARE THEM STRAIGHT method. Let them download etc, let them receive the threatening letters and other paperwork consequences, and just as soon as they’re taken to court where they are convinced it will end negatively for them, just divert them to a side door where this propaganda BS is playing. Make them agree to a settlement to STOP IT and they’ll be let free. Problem solved. You’re welcome.
Propaganda will not work on these kids. The only way to solve copyright infringement issues is a simple SCARE THEM STRAIGHT method. Let them download etc, let them receive the threatening letters and other paperwork consequences, and just as soon as they’re taken to court where they are convinced it will end negatively for them, just divert them to a side door where this propaganda BS is playing. Make them agree to a settlement to STOP IT and they’ll be let free. Problem solved. You’re welcome.
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and just as soon as they’re taken to court where they are convinced it will end negatively for them, just divert them to a side door where this propaganda BS is playing. Make them agree to a settlement to STOP IT and they’ll be let free.
and exactly what proportion of the population can you actually afford to do this to?
To encourage polarization.
The people who present these things understand perfectly well that 90% of the kids see right through them (that number varies by age group of course). They understand how silly they look. But why not do it anyway? The corporations paying for it have money to burn and for the presenter shills it’s just a job (usually a pretty lucrative one).
The real reason they do it is for the 10% of kids who will actually buy into it, even if only partly. Creating a little social dissonance against the dominant paradigm is worth it to them.
Mike, you got a typo…”that’s” not “that’a”
This is where the rapport between a company and a consumer is important. The fact that these companies that work so hard against piracy have never tried to bridge the gap until now just shows how stupid they are.
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he probably doesn’t care since that guy is just advocating for a sort-of ‘bailout’ for musicians. I’m all for artists being compensated, big and small, but claiming that we need more laws b/c small-time artists can’t survive off the living they make at their craft is so warped it circles all the way around to meet up with the mega corporations claims that they can’t make enough money off of the big time artists.
I want everyone to be able to do for a living what they just love to do but artificially imposing that isn’t the answer. If you aren’t making enough money at what you do, do something else.
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Hey Lawlery, keep moving that ancient mouth of yours
http://oi50.tinypic.com/20ssxa9.jpg
Its for the children though!!!
They’ll never realize that kids aren’t stupid, because they’ll never be able to accept the fact that kids are smarter than them.
I think campaigns to educate children are useful to help build up the kids’ bullshit detectors.
Kids are going to figure out pretty quickly that they want a lot more music than the album or two which their allowance covers, and they are going to figure out pretty quickly that they own a digital copying machine which, like a Star Trek replicator, churns out copies of digital files for free.
For the same reason that Copyright Deniers continue to astroturf
Face it. This web site is just a mascot for the copyright deniers who want to believe that they should be able to take everyone’s creations for free. Folks like Big Search like to pretend that everything is fair use and there’s nothing wrong with helping folks take everything for free. These kind of folks are copyright deniers and they continue to fund astroturfing campaigns.
Now, on the face of it, paying off the law school dreamers looks much classier than creating lame video ads to run on DVDs, but that’s only the eyes of fellow copyright deniers. In reality, when the astroturfers end up in court, they often end up losing badly. Charlie Nesson is just but one example. It’s one thing to laugh at a lame DVD intro and it’s another to be laughed out of court.
So, while I will admit that creating a DVD ad that asks people to pay their fair share is about as impossible a project as creating an ad that tells kids that doing their homework is cool, I think the astroturfing by the copyright deniers is even more of a waste of time.
Copyright is a pretty bright line. It’s been around for hundreds of years. There’s a well-developed collection of case law. While there will always be interesting hypothetical questions like whether a cache infringes, the structure is pretty obvious. If you’re going to be benefiting from the material, you should be paying your fair share.
But no one here wants to hear that. Everyone here wants to hear that beautifully written books, lifechanging movies and wonderful songs will just appear out of thin air and be given free to the world because someone magical tenured law school professor tells them that it happens to him or her every pay day. Just because the law school astroturfers get free money from the sky for doing little work doesn’t mean that the rest of the world can enjoy such a great deal with society.
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He already has a page for that.
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and exactly what proportion of the population can you actually afford to do this to?
Damn near zero percent of the population. If they try pushing for $150,000 USD per song/movie it will not be long before there is a huge public outcry. Scare tactics and treats do not work, we know this from the death penalty in the French clothing pattern days. Education campaigns do not work, we know this from illegal and prescription drug abuse statistics. Providing poor service does not work, we know this from all the failed businesses of the past. Forcing people to settle under threat does not work, we know this from several RIAA cases that will continue for years to come.
In every case RIAA and the MPAA are trying force people to bend to their will, as opposed to doing what a smart business type would do, bend to the customers will.
For the same reason that Copyright Deniers continue to astroturf
9.3/10
Pros: Well spoken, almost believable, very subtle fallacies. Lacking the troll hallmarks (name-calling, etc).
Cons: Bit long, lacks factual backing. Conveys more certainty than experience can account for–obviously a piece done by one with belief, but without knowledge or experience.
All in all, quite good. Keep up the good work.
For the same reason that Copyright Deniers continue to astroturf
“Copyright is a pretty bright line. It’s been around for hundreds of years.”
For millions of years before there was no copyright and we still had the bronze age, the iron age, the library at Alexandria, etc. Copyright is a made up concept that came into existence to control the output of a new invention, the printing press. It was corrupted by middlemen over the centuries to the system we have now.
For the same reason that Copyright Deniers continue to astroturf
Hundreds of years of copyright versus the ~30,000 years or so of art created by humans without copyright.
Guess stuff can happen without copyright.
Let me try
You wouldn’t download an oppressive totalitarian regime, would you?
Let me try
Only if Big Search directed me to it.
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If I read it correctly, that part of the article was written by the interviewer, Maria Bustillos, not David Lowery.
They also assume, falsely, that piracy is harming the industry when the numbers show otherwise.
For the same reason that Copyright Deniers continue to astroturf
Hmmm
I always thought that most of the law school astroturfers were on the other side of the fence. Maybe we’re both suffering from a confirmation bias.
Personally, I think of this site as interactive news and comedy. It’s almost like a Colbert Report or Daily Show, but you get to join in the mocking/stupidity. It’s too bad we cannot really know who really is here for news/comedy and who is being paid.
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Bovine is cattle, not pig.
For the same reason that Copyright Deniers continue to astroturf
Bob’s misuse of the term “astroturf” is almost endearing.
“Copyright is a pretty bright line… If you’re going to be benefitting from the material, you should be paying your fair share.” Yes, that’s why there were those enormous racks of blank cassette tape at Tower Records and other fine stores, because everyone believed in respecting copyright.
I benefitted from a pile of DVDs this week, and I didn’t pay a penny for them.
Thank you, library!!
D.A.R.E. totally worked
(Drug Abuse Resistance Education) totally didn’t let kids know they might want to try drugs now that they know about their existence and that “the man” doesn’t want them to. Kids never ever defy authority as part of exploration.
This ‘education’ against piracy will work out just as well as DARE did.
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Or the even more outrageous idea that granting monopolies to anyone is a bad idea, people should be able to make a living through what they produce, not force others to pay rent for someone, also people not wanting to pay twice for the same thing over and over again is not that absurd, would you pay royalties to the manufacturer of your car every time you used it? would you be glad to pay the car manufacturer for every mile you put in on that car? would you pay royalties for the car manufacturer for having the privilege to have a radio in it? or if you install one? would you feel comfortable making it illegal to drive a car without having to pay royalties to the car manufacturer?
Those are the questions that pseudo-artists don’t like to answer ever.
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That idea is wonderful, actually I am all for it albeit for different reasons.
In my world, fueling the anger of the public and creating an image of oppression is the easiest way to encourage public outcry against something.
Copyright infringement was not infringement 10 years ago, it is now because the law was changed. Copycrap keeps expanding and now it has met the limit of the public tolerance for it.
For the same reason that Copyright Deniers continue to astroturf
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The original form of copyright died recently though, it was not illegal to share anything, it was not illegal to copy anything, it was not illegal to reuse and modify something, those are recent changes they didn’t happen a hundred years ago because people understood what a fraking monopoly is and it is bad that is why it was very limited, now that it is out of control and people are saying no you get all worked up about it?
Though for you mate.
I’m not paying a dime for anything more than once, I am not paying royalties to a group of social parasites that call themselves “artists” that believe they would not be able to produce art if they didn’t have the right monetary incentives those are not real artists, real artists would do it even no matter what and those people in favor of monopolies should be subject to what they want to inflict upon others that means having to pay for everything they own and use every time they use it with ridiculous rules telling them what the uses authorized are and are not, they should have to pay eternaly for the producers of their food and clothes, instruments, tools, even their hairdressers if a photo was taken and he gets some money from it he should have to pay the person who did his hair, his nails, clothes, jewelry and anything that was used to compose that image right there, is that what you morons keeps asking people to do?
To pay the fair share for every use of some BS imaginary property?
For the same reason that Copyright Deniers continue to astroturf
More if the meta-artist can’t pay royalties for everything he owns to the people who produce it, he should be marginalized and put in jail were he belongs because he is using stuff that benefits him/her/it without paying the people who made it possible for him/her/it to do it.
To encourage polarization.
The problem with this approach is that even amongst the children who do buy into the propaganda, there will be many who grow up and come to their senses (like I did after being raised as an evangelical christian in my youth) and they will resent you even more and feel more driven to convince others how deceptive and manipulative you are.
What's one more indoctrination campaign?
We already teach children all kinds of lies about organized religion, political affiliation, etc.
Why is it irrational to expect them to fall for this one too?
xoxo, Anonymous
“Propoganda”? “Brainwash”?
There seems to be a bit of paranoia associated with the article leading off this thread.
Law is part of national culture, so it does appear to be a bit off the mark to castigate those who want to share some of it.
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Yeah, I guess apartheid laws and Nazi laws should have been shared and not castigated, right?
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And the relevance of this off-the-wall comment is…?
For the same reason that Copyright Deniers continue to astroturf
Hey, bob, how ya doing?
Losing more arguments I see.
That’s what? 900+ failed arguments?
For shame, bob… For shame…
“Everyone here wants to hear that beautifully written books, lifechanging movies and wonderful songs will just appear out of thin air and be given free to the world”
Read any fanfiction or see any fanart lately, bob?
That’s given out for free, after all.
Rule of thumb, bob…
Once something is on the internet, just assume everyone’s seen it already and stop freaking out about potential copyright infringement.
Let me try
“You wouldn’t download an oppressive totalitarian regime, would you?”
It was tried once.
The names Bush, Obama, Romney, Clinton and Norquest popped up as a result of it.
One of the pearls of wisdom from Despair.com comes to mind.
“Teach every child you meet the importance of forgiveness. It’s our only hope of surviving their wrath once they realize just how badly we’ve screwed things up for them.”
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Bad laws paid for by wealthy corporations are sadly a part of our national culture, but that doesn’t mean they need to be “shared” with children or adults.
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How does that make you feel?
Considering he failed to refute Mike’s arguments? Pretty good, I guess.
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You’re welcome.
You’re delusional if you actually think it will work.
For the same reason that Copyright Deniers continue to astroturf
Face it.
Face it. You’re full of shit, as usual.
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Well, when you lie about the facts in order to further your agenda, then I’m pretty sure that that is the very definition of propoganda.
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Haters gonna hate and not want to talk like adults.
I guess that says i tall.
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Bad laws that criminalize the majority obviously need fixing, if you want to keep the laws.
Honestly, I really don’t understand why the US Government should be involved at all. They don’t come to my rescue if I get ripped off..
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And the factual “lies” are…?
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Don’t Copy that Floppy. Google and watch, if only for the entertainment…like watching retro cartoons.
I don’t know if anyone else has noticed, but the corps have already done a good job of brainwashing the younger generation into thinking sharing is a crime.