Entertainment Industry Continues Teaching Students One Sided Lesson

Culture

from the now,-children,-thinking-for-yourself-is-bad dept

You may remember that last fall the entertainment industry began a project where they went into schools to teach a “lesson” on why file sharing was bad that included the lesson, “if you didn’t pay for it, you stole it.” Of course, to hammer this lesson home, the industry gave away for free DVD players and trips to Hollywood to those students who could come up with the best essays to express why anything free must be stolen (sort out the irony for yourself). Now the industry says they’re so happy with the program that they’re gearing up to use it next school year as well. This raises the very important question of who the hell is letting the industry into the classroom to teach a very one-sided lesson? Anyway, while the article does a good job of expressing the opinions of those who oppose this program, (“It’s rather like inviting the American insurance industry into the classroom to tell kids about the future of health care”) the reporter clearly got confused on the specifics of the entertainment industry’s lawsuits. The article claims the MPAA and the RIAA have been suing downloaders – which isn’t true. The MPAA hasn’t filed any lawsuits specifically against people for using file sharing. They have filed suit against someone caught digitizing and uploading a movie though. Also, and this point is missed by any number of articles on the topic, the RIAA isn’t suing people for downloading unauthorized tracks, but for sharing those tracks and offering them to others to download.