RIAA's Elementary School Copyright Curriculum 507
selven writes "In a blatant campaign devoid of any subtlety, the RIAA is fighting for the hearts and minds of our children with its Music Rules, a collection of education materials on how to respect copyright. The curriculum includes vocabulary such as 'counterfeit recordings, DMCA notice, "Grokster" ruling, legal downloading, online piracy, peer-to-peer file sharing, pirate recordings, songlifting, and US copyright law.' There is no mention whatsoever of fair use. Compounding the bias, it includes insights such as that taking music without paying for it is 'songlifting,' and that making copies for personal use and then playing them while your friends come over is illegal. On the bright side, it includes math showing that the total damages from copyright infringement by children in the US amount to a measly $7.8 million."
Okay, You Have the Floor (Score:5, Interesting)
There is no mention whatsoever of fair use.
Well, there actually is a mention of fair use in the parent guide [music-rules.com] but all it does is refer you to a better site [isafe.org]. The only other mention is -- hilariously enough -- in their own terms of use [music-rules.com] about using the materials on the site under fair use.
... not the law. Because "fair use" is ambiguous and the so called "doctrine [copyright.gov]" is downright laughable. If you don't agree with me, go ahead and post a response arguing for or against my above Wikipedia edits being "fair use." I'll gladly play the devil's advocate if someone doesn't beat me to it.
But that's beside your point, let's play a game. Pretend you have the floor in front of primary school students and you want to explain fair use. What do you say?
I'm not saying they shouldn't mention it. Because it's not well defined [wikipedia.org]. Fair use is, in my opinion, an abomination in that it's a "law" that's not defined in anyway. And what's even better is when I try to cite the safe harbor laws [slashdot.org] or portion limits [slashdot.org] on Slashdot, I'm ridiculed [slashdot.org] over [slashdot.org] and over [slashdot.org] (not that I've ever practiced law but as a citizen it's the most I can find) despite my analysis being correct [lessig.org]! So with my masters degree in computer science, I am clearly unable to pin down what precisely constitutes fair use and what does not. I imagine that were I charged with uploading and editing [wikipedia.org] fair use samples of every song off of David Bowie's Hunky Dory album (which I did) that my innocence would depend entirely on how much money I have for a lawyer
So given the above information, would you please outline how you would explain this to children? Or how you plan to "win their hearts and souls" with the fair use doctrine?
What I want for Christmas: someone in my government to man up and bring any amount of clarity to copyright law, fair use and (while we're at it) patents. Something shouldn't be unclear until you've already been sued for doing it. That's how you find yourself in situations like the RIAA suing thousands of people and watching court case after court case resolve to millions in damages awarded from an average citizen to a huge conglomerate of lawyers and labels.
Is it like Sex Ed can I opt my Kid Out (Score:5, Interesting)
When my kid reaches school age can I make sure she doesn't get exposure to this blatant pack of lies. Will there be a letter sent home so I can OPT her out of gettig this "education".
Re:Okay, You Have the Floor (Score:5, Interesting)
"You have the right to use small parts of something covered by copyright (like quoting a book for an essay) to comment on it, write a review about it or parody it and you're allowed to make copies for yourself to use."
So you're saying that if I take very small samples of The Beatles' White Album (as I consider the album an entire work) and make new songs out of those small samples, it is completely legal [chillingeffects.org] and I can distribute or sell said reconstructions because they are small parts or parodies? Do I need to merely include a comment on my "mashup" to make that legal?
Or if I take a single episode of the Family Guy (the whole series is what seven seasons now?) I can distribute that with my website with commentary on how it's great for society?
The three Rs (Score:3, Interesting)
Schools should focus on "The three Rs", Reading, wRiting, a aRithmetic, and secondarily on physical and sex education so people know how to be healthy.
After they have been taught these things and have mastered English and communication skills enough to differentiate propaganda from civics and distinguish logical fallacies from legal dogma, then they can be taught about the RIAA and copyright in a Political Science class, and not as part of a religion.
Awesome! (Score:2, Interesting)
"...the total damages from copyright infringement by children in the US amount to a measly $7.8 million."
So, going by the 80,000 per song that Jammie Thomas had to shell out divided by the $7.8 million worth of damages stated here, this is saying that children in the US have downloaded a combined 97.5 songs!
Re:Okay, You Have the Floor (Score:3, Interesting)
I took a course in High School where we dissected the film Cool Hand Luke , and we showed the whole thing. Then took pieces of it and commented on each piece one section at a time and in the end we had reproduced the entire script and several images within the commentary. This was ruled fair use because we used the entire thing in the commentary and the commentary would be useless without the amount we used.
Re:How about some Civics? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not sure that's true. For some segment of society, maybe.. but for others less so.
One of my earliest memories is of when a teacher was trying to tell me the alphabet and me demanding to know *why* B follows A and C follows B. I got 2 weeks of detention for that.. learned early that you don't ask questions in school, you just give them the correct answer and move on (one of my other lessons was - if you discover that the times tables can be done by adding numbers together, on no account let your teacher know. Another two weeks of detention for working something out rather than rote learning it).
I still react when someone states something without backing it up with evidence. I *want* to think for myself.
Re:Public Schools Taking a dump ... (Score:3, Interesting)
"Propaganda institutions" is the phrase you're looking for. Many libertarians claim that's why public schools were created - to fill incoming immigrants with pro-american propaganda, but I think those people are nutters. I think public schools started with good intentions (like most government programs), but evolved into nothing more than soapboxes for lobbyists & others with agendas.
See my sig for an example.
Classrooms as a political playground... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What's wrong with teaching? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What's wrong with teaching? (Score:3, Interesting)
And until schools step up and start doing that, outsiders will come in to do it in their version.
We've seen it already with drugs and sex-ex. It's true, not fucking is the only way to not get pregnant. But that doesn't mean it's abstinence-only that should be taught. Yet, in many schools teachers would rather let someone else come in to talk about an uncomfortable subject; even if it's a little spun.
Same deal with digital downloads. The article mentions a few artists who do make their stuff freely available. But that's the exception, not the rule. A safe rule is, if you're not absolutely sure, don't do it.
Re:What's wrong with teaching? (Score:5, Interesting)
But illegal downloading really IS stealing.
No it isn't: Illegal downloading is copyright infringement - it may be against the law, but it has nothing to do with theft. In other news, dropping litter is not assault with a deadly weapon, and shoplifting is not murder.
Dropping gum on the sidewalk is reprehensible behaviour, but we don't call it "attempted shoe homicide" and send people to the Big Chair for it.
Last time I looked, the only religion which included "Thou shalt not infringe copyright" in its commandments was Scientology.
That's the problem: there's nothing wrong with teaching kids the facts about copyright. The problem is with teaching kids industry propaganda about copyright which exagerates its seriousness, and is really about vested interests trying to maintain control of the industry in an age when most musicians would do better by givimng away music and making their money from gigs and t-shirts.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Damages figure, anyone? (Score:4, Interesting)
With a teacher's help, students then calculate how "big a problem" songlifting isâ"by multiplying the total number of songs by $0.99.
So they're basically admitting that the actual damages are just $0.99 a song? Seems like a way to take the RIAA on under the 8th amendment using their own propaganda against them.
Re:How about some Civics? (Score:3, Interesting)
one of my other lessons was - if you discover that the times tables can be done by adding numbers together, on no account let your teacher know. Another two weeks of detention for working something out rather than rote learning it
Wow. We were told that multiplication was a function of addition when we learned the tables, I'm fairly shocked not only that you weren't, but that you got in trouble when you figured it out. The correct way, IMO, was the way my elementary school teacher explained it: "Multiplication is simply addition of the same number to itself "multiple" times, and you *can* figure out 3x4 by simply adding three together 4 times. This can be really cumbersome with larger numbers though, so we memorize the multiplication table to make things easier. It may seem hard to memorize all of this, but it's easier than having to add "8" to itself nine times every time you want to know what "8x9" comes out to." Of course that's not a quote, and I'm sure she used simpler words, but that's the gist. Give the theory, then explain the practical way to do it if the practice varies from the theory: Education 101.
Re:Fair use? (Score:2, Interesting)
If you start with one copy of a copyrighted work and end up with n copies of a work, where n is greater than 1, in the hands of m people, where m is greater than 1, without the permission of the copyright holder, then unauthorized copies have been made. There is no fair use defense, because there is no fair use for that situation.
In this case, I have posted a comment. You have quoted it, and it resulted in n > 1 copies being made in every browser's cache in the hands of m > 1 people, and all of this without my permission. Either your description of an unauthorized copy is wrong, or your fair use defense is wrong. One has to be.
$1.98 per month royalty for Sirius? (Score:4, Interesting)
My Sirius subscription expires on the 22nd and I called to renew. After reviewing their packages I selected one and as we got around to taking my card number they said... "Ok, we have you set up for the monthly plan at $12.95 plus the $1.98 artist royalty fee so you will be charged 14.93 a month."
I said not a chance am I paying a royalty fee on top of my subscription fee. You just lost a subscriber.
Re:Why would a school include this "material"? (Score:3, Interesting)
I know the classes exist. My question was how it fit into the "core" subjects. IMO, we spend too much money on music, art, sports, etc., in public schools. I was homeschooled and those things were not part of my school curriculum. They were things that I was allowed to do after I finished my school work. Well, I was "made" to practice piano/instruments, as I showed some talent but, as a typical kid, didn't particularly like practicing. Video games, reading for fun, and sports were extracurricular non-school activities. "School" was math, language, and science pretty much. I did have physical education in high school (even homeschooled) for one year.
Seems like in most public schools, math-language-science type courses are not really the priority. "Self expression" has taken precedent over "learning." Which makes sense, I suppose, since the current popular world view appears to be that it doesn't really matter what other people think, it just matters what you like doing... follow your dreams (even if your dreams are stupid) :)
I think that would be impossible (Score:1, Interesting)
Step 1: Teach them critical thinking, instead of doctrine.
Step 2: There is no step 2.
Children should learn to think. With regard to controversial topics like copyright law or health care legislation, they should be encouraged to seek broad resources and to judge for themselves. They should never, under any circumstances, be indoctrinated into any belief. Not even beliefs about fair use, of which I am a rabid supporter.
I know that exaggerating is generally a bad form of argumentation but you did use the phrases 'never, under any circumstances' and 'any belief' and I would just like to point out how absurd that is. For the definition of indoctrination I'll choose Wiktionary's "to teach with a biased or one-sided ideology".
The belief that human life should be valued, even when you don't directly benefit from it yourself, shouldn't be indoctrinated to children? The belief that other ethnicities and people who disagree with your view should still be considered human? Hell, the trust in critical thinking, belief that scientific method (not referring to any specific theories or their validity) should be preferred over blind trust is a belief in itself.
Children can not just be taught to critical thinking. Even ignoring all the problems with the ways with which their brain is still undeveloped, they need axioms to base their critical thinking on. Those axioms, or values, don't define how they'll end up thinking but they certainly define the limits of possible results and the problems tackled first. A person might think women are inferior and can be held as property even if he thinks critically. His axioms just might be different than ours or his priorities might differ. Perhaps he has a good theory about how the society as a whole would benefit from men being able to exchange and trade in women though individual women would lose their human rights. Or perhaps he simply doesn't consider right to freedom as important... Or perhaps he would end up thinking about women the way we do but his priorities are different and he considers that very unimportant detail.
All the children have to get their axioms from somewhere. They don't live in a vacuum and they don't come up with those all by themselves. We can argue about who should teach them those values (School, society, parents, 4chan, the church...) but I don't think that we should strive to avoid teaching them those things. In fact, I think it is our responsibility to teach our moral values (all the way from appreciating human life to fair use) to our children by the best of our abilities. Choosing to not raise your child to your religion is not choosing to not teach him your values. It is about choosing which ones of your values to teach him.
Re:Okay, You Have the Floor (Score:5, Interesting)
making copies for personal use and then playing them while your friends come over is illegal
This sounds like FUD to me (courtesy of "selven", apparently). Here's one of the "activities" in one of the PDFs:
Take a look at these scenarios. See if you can spot the songlifters who are breaking the copyright law...
Caitlin wants to listen to music as much as possible. She copies all the music she buys online onto blank CDs so she can listen to her music when her friends come over to play. And she transfers the music she buys on CD onto her MP3 player so she can listen to her music when driving in the car with her family.
Caitlin is not a songlifter because personal use is permitted when music fans buy their music. Caitlin can copy her music onto her hard drive and her MP3 player. Caitlin can even burn a CD with her own special mix of music she has purchased.
I'd like to see a reference on where they say that it's illegal to play your music for your friends. That's specifically what I'm trying to find in the PDFs, I think that claim by TFS is false.
Of course, this entire "program" seems like a nightmare to sit through. Look at this stuff, in the teacher's guide:
Write the word songlifting on the chalk-board and ask students what they think it means.
*raise hand* I know! That's a word that was made up by a shady corporate lobby.
Have students conduct the survey [to find out who they know is a "songlifter"] as home- work, emphasizing that they should only collect information, not names. Use the chalkboard to compile their findings and investigate trends. For example: Which is the most common type of songlifting? Which age group has the most songlifters? Have students use the results of their survey to determine whether or not songlifting is a serious problem.
So Billy, do you download songs? Oh yeah, what do you use? I haven't heard of that one, I should check it out. For research, I mean.
Next, draw the copyright symbol on the
chalkboard. Ask if students know what this
symbol means and where they might have seen
it
I weep for our nation's schoolchildren..
only 7.8 million dollars then??? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Okay, You Have the Floor (Score:3, Interesting)
what fair use is
Anything that isn't unfair.
It really is that simple. The only hitch is that lawyers who are paid to lie will claim that something is unfair simply because they see some money and think they can get it.
Perhaps the lady fined $1.8 million will decide to buy bullets instead of paying anyone, then the definitions (or number of lawyers willing to argue it) will change.
Yes, the law is crap in that it doesn't define anything but even if it did (think of how you clearly and explicitly don't need permission to use software, but the industry says otherwise and supplies EULAs) you'd still have liars and their legal staff trying to twist the truth. Law just *is* shit.
Re:Okay, You Have the Floor (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm just trying to get you to think about the ways in which this whole fair use thing becomes ambiguous but apparently you can say what you feel like saying without quoting or citing one legal document or precedent ... and there you are at +5 informative. Great, keep teaching kids that.
Fair Use is supposed to be ambiguous.
If you REALLY want to get technical, selven (1556643) could sue you right now for plagiarism. According to Slashdot's disclaimer, "Comments are owned by the Poster." You didn't list his name, the web address nor did you list the time and date you accessed his words. Congratulations, you quoted someone without giving proper credit.
I sent an email... (Score:5, Interesting)
I sent an email to the address at the bottom of the site...
Re:Okay, You Have the Floor (Score:3, Interesting)
It doesn't say that. In fact, the teacher's guide [music-rules.com] says this in the answer section:
This is related to the item from the activity guide [music-rules.com]:
This is followed by a multiple choice checklist with possible answers. I suspect the summary was written with the assumption that the "correct" answer is the one most likely to inflame Slashdot passions.
In short, this is (as another commenter pointed out elsewhere) likely FUD. I re-read TFA multiple times and couldn't figure out where the author of the summary got that bit from, and then dug down into the PDFs on the Music Rules site. Turns out I couldn't find anything resembling the claim made in the summary because it wasn't there to be found.