Want To Teach Technology? Gotta First Teach One-Sided Copyright Lessons

Legal Issues

from the yeah,-like-that-will-help dept

In the past, schools have allowed obviously biased parties like the MPAA go into schools and teach one-sided lessons about intellectual property. However, now it appears that schools in California may be required to give one-sided intellectual property lessons if they want state money to teach technology. That’s the gist of a new law being proposed that would tie state grant money (earmarked for teaching technology) to promises to teach very specific lessons on intellectual property. The specific language says three things need to be taught to get the money: “ethical behavior in regards to the use of information technology,” “the concept, purpose, and significance of a copyright,” and “the implications of illegal peer-to-peer network file sharing.” Unfortunately, it’s likely that all three discussions won’t be balanced, but very one-sided in favor of the content industry. You could (and probably should!) have very interesting discussions around all of these points that point to the very big questions they raise — but that doesn’t seem to be the purpose of this bill. Still, it might be interesting if someone at a more progressive thinking school did get the grant money and used it towards a real examination of these three issues, rather than the simplistic, one-sided view of the entertainment industry.