"If you didn't pay for it, you've stolen it!"

[Tim May]

Hollywood Preaches Anti-Piracy to Schools

Thu Oct 23, 3:09 PM ET

By RON HARRIS, Associated Press Writer

SAN FRANCISCO -  As part of its campaign to thwart online music and 
movie piracy, Hollywood is now reaching into school classrooms with a 
program that denounces file-sharing and offers prizes for students and 
teachers who spread the word about Internet theft.

The Motion Picture Association of America paid $100,000 to deliver its 
anti-piracy message to 900,000 students nationwide in grades 5-9 over 
the next two years, according to Junior Achievement Inc., which is 
implementing the program using volunteer teachers from the business 
sector.

 "What's the Diff?: A Guide to Digital Citizenship" launched last week 
with a lesson plan that aims to keep kids away from Internet services 
like Kazaa that let users trade digital songs and film clips: "If you 
haven't paid for it, you've stolen it."

The program appears to be working, with students in dozens of middle 
schools announcing that they will not enter their school libraries. 
Said one student: "These libraries let lots of kids read the same 
books...that's like Kazaa lets lots of people listen to songs!"

Another one added that they are joining a Christian Coalition program 
to shut down parties that other students run. "They are, like, letting 
kidz listen to music and stuff," said one banner-toting teenybopper.

TM: the last two paragraphs were of course added by me. But the point 
is still valid, that much of Hollywood's claims about "illegal 
listening" are not really any different from "reading without buying" 
books and magazines in libraries. The more urgent issue is this crap 
about corporations buying time in public schools. If I had a kid in a 
school and it was proposed that Nike, Time-Warner, Coke, or Intel would 
be buying teaching time, I'd tell them to stop it pretty fucking quick 
or face the Mother of All Columbines.

--Tim May