MPAA Pays Big Money to teach schoolchildren that Sharing is Wrong

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/headline/tech/2176045

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.

"This is really sounding like Soviet-style education. First they're indoctrinating the students and then having students indoctrinate their peers," said Wendy Seltzer, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "The takeaway message has got to be more nuanced. Copyright is a complicated subject."

Melinda Anderson, a spokeswoman for the National Education Association, says it's unsettling when corporate presence in the classroom is tethered to sponsored incentive programs. In this case, Junior Achievement is offering students DVD players, DVD movies, theater tickets and all-expenses-paid trips to Hollywood for winning essays about the illegalities of file-sharing. Teachers, too, can win prizes for effectively communicating the approved message in class.

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This campaign to redefine the word "stealing" to mean "not properly following copyright regulations" even when there is no financial loss to the copyright holder should be disturbing to anyone, even those who support artist-held copyrights (like I do).