I ran across an article at arstechnica tonight that disturbs me beyond comprehension. First let me summarize, then I'll go into why this is so terrible.
The Motion Picture Association of America has worked with the Boy Scouts (specifically, the Los Angeles area Boy Scouts) to develop a "respect copyrights" patch. Young scouts can earn the patch by learning about what you are not supposed to do with copyrighted materials. You can view the curriculum here. Nestled in the embarrassingly brief curriculum is a one-of-these requirement to encourage their fellow scouts to use software such as the MPAA's Parent File Scan. Now what would a good scout do if he discovered mommy was doing peer-to-peer filesharing illegally?
How does using Parent File Scan teach kids about copyrights? It doesn't. It teaches them to detect copyright violations. Why not teach children about fair use? How long copyrights are good for? Regional differences in copyrights? How copyrighted material transforms into public domain material? The differences between copyrights, trademarks, and patents? Is it that the scouts aren't capable of understanding the whole picture, or is it that the organization behind the "propoganda badge" is clearly biased and is pushing a political agenda on our unsuspecting youth?
If you aren't familiar with the MPAA other than the movie rating systems, the organization has a history of scandals online (of course there are plenty more).
What disturbs me about this relates to a museum I saw when I visited Germany in my younger years. We visited a toy museum that was very cool - it had a lot of old time mechanical video games, toys from various periods through out history. The one thing that really stood out to me was a display of several schoolbooks from the Hitler years. The books clearly instructed children to alert authorities if their parents were hiding Jews in their homes.
Children are not tools to be used for political agendas. Children certainly should not be placed in a position to make a decision about an ethical conflict between their parents and ambiguous authority figures. It is wrong in every sense of the word.
If you want to teach kids about copyrights, that is one thing. If you want to cover propoganda with an educational cloak, I call foul.
If you catch your boy scout checking your computer system for copyright violations, the official recommended recourse is to find the scoutmaster and pee on him. Be prepared scoutmaster, Be Prepared.
Discuss Hey Kids, Rat Out Your Parents
