More Industry Anti-Piracy Propaganda: Former EMI Anti-Piracy Boss Launches 'Educational' Program

from the 2+2=? dept

With the school year having only recently started up, we had already covered the RIAA’s silly propaganda campaign masked as an “educational resource.” Of course, that’s not the only such program. The MPAA has offered up its own “copyright education” as has The Copyright Alliance — an operation whose entire purpose appears to be to push entertainment industry nonsense and propaganda without any factual support or basis. It looks like there’s another such program coming out of the UK as well. Torrentfreak alerts us to the news that EMI’s former anti-piracy boss just happened to have “left” EMI in time to create her own “educational campaign” about copyright for school children as young as five. The good news, though, is that the reporter from The Daily Mail wasn’t buying any of it, raising questions about why five year olds should be learning about copyright from industry supplied sources. The article also questions the claim that this campaign was financed independently from the recording industry, calling out the fact that the woman’s own LinkedIn profile indicated otherwise, until she changed it right after being interviewed (funny, that…).

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Companies: emi

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Comments on “More Industry Anti-Piracy Propaganda: Former EMI Anti-Piracy Boss Launches 'Educational' Program”

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23 Comments
Bullrunner says:

Get 'em while they're young

I love the idea of trying to educate children about copyright and the evils of sharing digital media.

It’s exactly the same process as all the other educational campaigns: teach them in primary school, in their formative years, and the lessons will stay with them for ever.

Look how it’s worked for smoking, drinking, respect, political correctness, crime.

Um…hang on a minute. Oh crap.

1st law of child behaviour: tell a kid NOT to do something and they immediately want to do it.

Genius.

Anonymous Coward says:

folks are angry . . but about what? teaching respect for property? for the basic human right of controlling what you create? there are big companies stealing ideas from artists and writers too – is the issue big versus small or the right of a creator to decide how to exploit his work? I know lots of individuals who have made lots of money on their movies and books and ideas and pictures – and they wouldn’t have made it if big corporations just took their rights away because there wasn’t any copyright.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

“there are big companies stealing ideas from artists and writers too”

It’s mostly big corporations that are lobbying for these intellectual property laws and it has nothing to do with the notion that they want to protect artists and the altruistic and benevolent nature of these corporations. It has everything to do with their selfishness.

If these intellectual property laws are for individuals and artists let them lobby for this and not just big corporations and lets keep big corporations out of the process and see how far these laws go. I bet if everyone got to vote on these laws they would disappear because they’re not for the individuals, they’re for the big corporations. and don’t give me this nonsense that big corporations know what’s best for individuals and the masses better than those individuals and the masses either.

Mike Masnick (profile) says:

Re: Re:

folks are angry . . but about what?

About industry driven propaganda.

By the way, who do you work for?

teaching respect for property?

These education campaigns are not about respect for property. Copyright is not property, it’s a gov’t granted privilege. Respect for property is something entirely different.

for the basic human right of controlling what you create?

No such right has ever existed.

there are big companies stealing ideas from artists and writers too

No doubt. Who do you work for, again?

is the issue big versus small or the right of a creator to decide how to exploit his work?

Neither. It’s about why any industry written propaganda should be allowed in schools.

I know lots of individuals who have made lots of money on their movies and books and ideas and pictures – and they wouldn’t have made it if big corporations just took their rights away because there wasn’t any copyright.

Who do you work for again?

Anyway, what does that have to do with a propaganda campaign in favor of the big companies…?

anon says:

Re: Re:

J.R.R. Tolkin

He wrote the lord of the rings before copyright was established. In fact in America he wasn’t releasing with any kind of alacrity. So this other company wrote and published the book eventually J.R.R. wanted to release his work here but the pirated version was cheaper and it was already released. So what did he do, he had a note on the front page saying that his was the official version it was more expensive as well. He probably got rich the official version outsold the pirated version and the other company is no longer around.

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