Anti-Piracy Groups Target Australia’s Children
Written by enigmax on June 02, 2009Several prominent film and TV anti-piracy groups and other industry bodies have teamed up to create yet another group, this time with the aim, among other things, to teach Australia’s children that copyright infringement is wrong.
Anti-piracy and entertainment industry group acronyms are commonplace here on TorrentFreak – MPAA, RIAA, IFPI, MPA, BPI – they go on and on and on. Since we clearly don’t have anywhere near enough, today we can introduce our readers to a new one.
According to a new group called Intellectual Property Awareness Foundation (IPAF), it has been created by the Australian movie and TV industries to “promote the value of the industry by raising awareness, understanding and appreciation of intellectual property, and its role and value in society.”
Members of IPAF include Australia Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT), Motion Picture Association (MPA), Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia, Australian Visual Software Distributors Association and various cinema owners and DVD rental outlets such as Blockbuster.
According to a statement by the group, IPAF will engage in various marketing campaigns, some of which will penetrate Australia’s schools and directly target children. The group’s so-called “education and awareness” campaigns will encourage children to take the opinion that piracy has nothing but a negative impact, with an aim to “motivate a change in attitudes and behavior to reduce public demand for illegal copies of film and television programs.”
Previously Chair of the Australian Film Commission and current Vice President of the Screen Producers Association of Australia, Maureen Baron has been appointed Chair of the Foundation.
“I believe most Australians want to do the right thing. We know that once they become aware that copyright theft is wrong and the detrimental impact it has on the industry, most stop pirating,” she said in a statement. “It will be our job to educate, and to create understanding and appreciation of the value of intellectual property to that end.”
We’ll reserve judgment on this new group until we see their work, but we expect it will be simply more of the same, just a different acronym.
Previously: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies on BitTorrent
Next: Artists Abused in Pirate Bay Trial Strike Back
76 Responses
Grrr.
Addling those young impressionable minds…
However did similar schemes work on us when were young?
Doubt it, I went to a ‘Church of England school’ and I am most definatly not a christian.
And when they turn in their parents and sibling for the hideous crime of sharing, they get a cookie and one free song.
Right ?
Sorry, i have to go and throw up now ..
“I believe most Australians want to do the right thing. We know that once they become aware that copyright theft is wrong and the detrimental impact it has on the industry, most stop pirating,” she said in a statement. “It will be our job to educate, and to create understanding and appreciation of the value of intellectual property to that end.”
I believe most Australians don’t give a crap about you and your snakeskin purses. It is not the job of a company to mess with the education of kids. That’s like McDonalds teaching kids in kintergarden that they have to eat cheeseburgers everyday. Honestly, copyright is not ‘intellectual property’, copyright is the right to spread data. Intellectual Propert is when companies develop new technologies (e.g. of PHYSICAL objects). One could argue that software can be patented, which personally I would find nonsense in non-commercial cases.
What they will teach or “preach” is: Don’t share with your friends. If they want it, they should buy it.
That really is going to work. Specialy in Australia. LOL.
Aussies although fiersome individualists, for all the hours I used chatting with them, strike me as extremely comunity oriented. So, that kind of approach is really up their alley… NOT.
I say, let them try. Maybe, some of those children parents and grand parents, (remember the old lady that killed her grand daughter rapist?) will take a stand. What a show that would be.
My son listens to what I tell him. If he preaches to me about this crap he will hear what I think about it and the school will get a visit from me soon after.
I’m sure kids will also change there attitudes fast when Dad stops renting them movies and offers downloads only. They could always spend there money…haha…never going to happen.
When the us launched its war against drugs in the 80’s with its JUST SAY NO slogan, did it work? When DVD’S started showing those dumb adds that Illegal downloading was a crime, did that work? The more someone in charge tells someone, ESP a young someone that something is wrong, The more the youth becomes involved with the idea, and is likely to rebel. Let them tell kids that copyright theft is wrong, They are just supplying the next gen of pirates, and giving us the next source for our torrents.
they dont give up…anyway, wont work
Someone seems to have forgotten Australia’s history, the worst pirates (not the downloading or DVD stealing kind) as well as rapists, murderers etc were sent to Australia to serve sentences, the started massacaring the aboriginals thinking them to be animals.. not human.
Aussies are pretty proud of this history… nearly every “pure Aussie” can trace their family tree back to one of these prisoners of old, maybe even a true pirate, you really don’t want mess with these people for no reason or it might blow up in your face, which I personally hope it does.
“We know that once they become aware that copyright theft”…
no such thing as “copyright theft”,
“infringement” yes,
“theft” no,
prepare for more of the same garbage including comparing “IP” to physical possessions.
“You wouldn’t steal a car would you?”
and my favorite:
“Piracy funds terrorists!”
meh Australians deserve this shit + other tougher laws. Fckin Racists
cool story bro :)
meh im not worried..
Just like weed.. they will see its not that bad once they get older..
This isn’t going to work you flaming gallahs!
There will never be an appreciation of the value of intellectual property as long as corporations engage in copyright theft. Theft being claiming someone’s work is your own or gaining all financial benefit through coerced rights transfer. Outlaw corporate ownership of copyrights = problem solved.
@Radman
Way to generalise a whole nation – now look who’s being racist!
Make me laugh (and has done for a while) that there is a program on kids BBC called “Space Pirates” which involves Captain DJ flying around the galaxy trying to find songs that his child listeners (”The Pirate Posse”)will like.
“I believe most Australians want to do the right thing. We know that once they become aware that copyright theft is wrong and the detrimental impact it has on the industry, most stop pirating,”
Yeah right..
@3 Rolanto
“I believe most Australians don’t give a crap about you and your snakeskin purses. It is not the job of a company to mess with the education of kids.”
Absolutely spot on. I couldn’t have put it better myself. And hopefully the parents will ensure that their kid’s education is not messed with. This crap is doomed to failiure before it even starts.
nambla and riaa… they really think of the children!
We should really have more of the news like this:
According to a new group called Free Information Awareness Foundation (FIAF), it has been created by the Internet BitTorrent and Free Software communities to “promote the value of the communities by raising awareness, understanding and appreciation of free information, and its role and value in society.”
Members of FIAF include Free Software Foundation (FSF), The Pirate Bay (TPB), and various tracker owners and movie releasers such as aXXo.
According to a statement by the group, FIAF will engage in various marketing campaigns, some of which will penetrate every country’s schools and directly target children. The group’s so-called “education and awareness” campaigns will encourage children to take the opinion that piracy has nothing but a positive impact, with an aim to “motivate a change in attitudes and behavior to increase public demand for free copies of film and television programs.”
Previously has been appointed Chair of the Foundation.
“I believe most Internet users want to do the right thing. We know that once they become aware that copyright is wrong and the detrimental impact it has on the industry, most start or continue to pirate,” (s)he said in a statement. “It will be our job to educate, and to create understanding and appreciation of the value of free information to that end.”
educating youngsters is fine, providing both sides of an argument etc are included. it is when the bullying and threatening starts that things go wrong and people get annoyed. be prepared for the consequences,ipaf etc. you’re gonna be sorry!!!
I’m still in education, and if anyone tried to teach me similar, they wouldn’t work, nor will this scheme by the IPAF, let them waste their money.
also @6 Fionn256
I couldn’t agree more :D
This will just make the kids think they’re cool for dowloading illegal material.
“…
-Hey John, listen to this!!!
-That song rocks! But you don’t have an iTunes account..?
-I downloaded ilegally off the internet for FREE.
-Cool! I wish my dad would let me do that…
And so John went home and downloaded bittorrent without his father knowing it.
…”
They should teach Australian children that racism is wrong !!!
more money’s being wasted because of ghost (duplicate) ridiculous organizations and it gets quickly blamed on file sharing. Anyway… won’t work. Twitter and everything else is so popular. They might prevent people from using torrents (for a bit) but my phone can still send pictures, my messaging clients and my e-mail atatchments are still working, there’s still crappyshare (rapidshare), my cd / dvd burner still comes with every computer that’s manufactured out there (especially from the US) . THere are mp3s still floating around… ETC ETC. Sort of how like the sex warnings work… they tell you “don’t do it” but there’s not enough information from the other side.. there’s the very famous condoms & birth control pills and whatever else. Education, no matter on what field, is best completed when there are two sides involved. So far, governments and industries and greedy bloodsuckers (politics) have tried convincing everyone from an e arly age that the world is beautiful and perfect and everything, and they have failed completely. Journalists are the best on this regard–they will often bring education to a higher level, providing the same information from many points of view. Is called infference–and of course the industry’s teaching a very narrow, one-sided focus on a new digital trend that’s really taking place on the 21st century before those kids learn to do such thing. Its simply not going to work because filesharing is a trend that’s pretty popular and can also b used legitimately. Buying cds is already been wattered down by the industry, so composers and artists are not getting even a fraction of the cost of that cd, thanks to the exploiting industry that claims it can control the world. But in the meantime,continue supporting live music, kids.
Since this is also going on the United States I thought of putting this up:
From the electronic frontier foundation (www.eff.org):
Taking copyright education seriously
“Copyright Alliance Education Foundation (CAEF)
, is offering a variety of educational materials assembled by the film, music and software industries. After reviewing those materials, we thought
it was crucial that educators have a real alternative.
…
” “Consider a few of the obvious shortcomings in the CAEF materials:
First: CAEF-endorsed materials give short shrift to the fair use doctrine
, which grants all creators the right to quote, transform and comment on copyrighted material without the original author’s permission. CAEF mostly ignores
this, and instead provides kids with misleading instructions like: “Never copy someone else’s creative work without permission from the copyright holder,”
and “Permission to use a copyrighted photograph for any purpose whatsoever must be obtained in advance.” Other materials describe re-use as “piracy,” “cyber-crime,”
and just plain “uncool.” Teaching Copyright, in contrast,
encourages students to explore both the limits on and opportunities for re-use of copyrighted materials.
Second: CAEF’s discussion of peer-to-peer file-sharing is simplistic at best, and biased at worst. For example, Music-Rules suggests that teachers ask students
to
calculate the cost of file-sharing to the recording industry
. But these calculations are based on a whole set of flawed assumptions. In other words, Music-Rules wants to co-opt math classes in order to teach bad
math. Other materials, such as
Lucky And Flo Fight Piracy and Donny The Downloader blur the line between education and intimidation, making sure to stress the penalties associated with
illegal downloading.
Teaching Copyright, in contrast, treats the peer-to-peer file-sharing controversies as an opportunity to think about the complicated relationship between
law and technology and the impact of changes in that relationship on creators and consumers. Thus,
in addition
to assessing the entertainment industry’s concerns, students are also asked to consider the viewpoints of the creators, the government, the legal and academic
communities, and the general public.
Third and finally: Perhaps the biggest flaw in the CAEF materials is how they teach these young citizens about law. Copyright education can be an extraordinary
opportunity to teach kids about the dynamic, imperfect nature of law — thereby empowering them to think about ways to change and improve it. Instead, CAEF
presents copyright law as a static set of unbreakable rules, to be memorized rather than understood, questioned or reformed. This generation of students
will be re-writing copyright law before they hit retirement, just as previous generations have done. Teaching Copyright was designed to encourage students
not only to think about the legal frameworks they have inherited, but also to think about the law they’d like to create.” Of course if you wish to spread the word out and help… tell all your teachers about techingcopyright.org . It seems much less biassed (unlike the crap the industry gives you) . So much for bias thaught at schools that not even those people follow it so how are they expecting copyright warnings to work?
Us aussies dont care about piracy, i have been a pirate for years and i dont know anyone against it. The credit crunch is making piracy a more common thing these days, many people i know have been downloading more then going to the cinema.
Ok then Maureen Baron if you want to stop piracy like you say.
I believe most Australians want to do the right thing. We know that once they become aware that copyright theft is wrong and the detrimental impact it has on the industry, most stop pirating
Then where are all the legal websites in Australia to download tv shows or movies direct from the US. And not have to wait months for the tv show to air.
I’m sick to death of hearing these people go on and on about how bad piracy is. But don’t give you legal alternatives to get you content.
This is “The Informational Nazism”
I agree with markie. it seems more and more like the industry just want to protect their ‘abnormal profits’ ie a monopoly. the industry should just hire lawyers who can actually sort out the licensing issues which prevents other countries from getting their tv shows, anime, etc and have to wait months or even years. thats money better spent I think.
Why don’t the anti-piracy lot just go the full hog and get McDonalds to give out toys that involve the Pirate Bay guys being executed… It might have more of an effect
Thisis wicked and sick, teaching children that buying films is more important than buying food.
Apparently, the copyright industry lacks child psychologists. In the normal course of growing up, during the teens, is the rebellion phase. During the rebellion phase, teens are exploring their world around them with their own ideas and how they fit into the scheme of things.
The most common is a rebellion of authority. Sometimes that’s the parents, sometimes the law, but almost always figures of authority in some manner. Here you have the IP industry trying to get in there while they’re young to influence their moral values (which I find a very strange place for these people to be dabbling in). Down the road, if not smart already, they will wise up at that point.
The rebound of finding out it ain’t bad is that it then reflects on the authority figure. That figure rapidly plunges in esteem and what remains is clear disdain for them and what they represent. Sort of sounds like the same old, same old don’t it?
Face it, the IP industry is desperate to find an answer to protect their income stream. The heads and upper management of the music industries themselves have went from musicians to lawyers and it shows up in how they deal with the world. From the lawyer point of view, all solutions are found in court.
Those solutions return the IP industries a very bad PR image. I honestly don’t care about them going bankrupt. I think it would solve the problem of an industry that wants control of every aspect of it’s business. Music certainly won’t die if the labels do. There might actually be a living in it then for the artists. As it is now, unless they are a super star, chances are slim for any sort of income to make it to the artist that rises to the level of a sustainable living wage.
The fact that these corporations are going after the kids in school, with the governments implied, if not active consent, shows just what sort of mentality runs both groups.
It is far more detrimental to children to deny them access to the arts and culture. Telling them “Oh no, you can’t be exposed to art and culture unless you can afford it so please pay for it so the music executives can afford their mansions and limousines and can continue to enslave the artists we claim to protect” is complete idiocy, selfishness and pure greed.
Using scare tactics to frighten the children of today is complete and absolute exploitation just for the sake of large corrupt corporations to make vasts amount of money.
The RIAA/MPAA are attempting to thwart my prediction that this generation of children will never forget how they were threatened and exploited, and that when they become tomorrows judges, politicians and law makers they will change copyright laws to reflect that they should be for the people, and not for a very select elite and privileged few that run the worlds largest music and movie corporations.
Art and culture belongs to the human race and is created by the human race. Corporations do not and should own them.
Besides, I remember way back when about how children were taught that smoking, drugs, alcohol and sex were wrong. Yes, those things can be dangerous and potentially kill you, but downloading a movie or song won’t. There’s a huge difference.
Children will make up their own mind and realize the truth one day just like we all have, that the music and movie industry is tyrannical, greedy, selfish and fascist.
RIAA/MPAA = The Beast.
“Someone seems to have forgotten Australia’s history, the worst pirates (not the downloading or DVD stealing kind) as well as rapists, murderers etc were sent to Australia to serve sentences, the started massacaring the aboriginals thinking them to be animals.. not human.
Aussies are pretty proud of this history… nearly every “pure Aussie” can trace their family tree back to one of these prisoners of old, maybe even a true pirate, you really don’t want mess with these people for no reason or it might blow up in your face, which I personally hope it does.”
So true <3
Australian’s are racist, homophobic, sexist anti-intellectuals, why would we care about stopping piracy?
Can we indoctrination through propaganda? We should keep this shit out of our school systems.
(Seeing visions of Max Headroom & Robocop worldviews. Cyberpunk comes alive All Hail the Corporations) (shudder)
And after a crapy day of school and mindless propaganda children will come home and relax on the net with a good movie from Torrent.
Hey, what are they gonna do? Work all summer on some stupid job just to be abble to pay for some overpriced movie. Dont worry, children are not stupid.
Corporates are fighting loosing battle.
TPB FTW
It’s the industry that really needs education. They need to learn how to more adequately address market demands and to reduce piracy by offering competive products. Unfortunately, the “pirates” understand what we Australian conusmers want with regards to access to TV and film content better than the industry itself.
In summary, what we want is access to films and TV programs at the same time, or very soon after, they’re made available to the US. Not 6 to 12 months later, as is common for even some popular TV series. And it needs to be absolutely DRM free, high definition and affordable.
iTunes fails in all of those areas, by offering overpriced, lower-than-DVD-quality content that is encumbered with DRM, many months or years after the original air date.
“reduce public demand for illegal copies of film and television programs”
how about finding a cost efficient way to supply the demand instead of trying to quash it? people want coffee, so they building a million starbucks’ selling cheap coffee. why the fuck is it so hard to do the same for p2p?
if corporations want more money they should leave the religious values of the 50’s behind and legalise prostitution. theres millions of people classed as criminals who would gladly pay for the service.
Kids are a lot smarter than people give them credit for. I used to teach my parents how to program a VCR (illegal device at one time!). Now my kids teach me how to download free iphone apps for my blackberry…
kids will rule the world someday, free information (including all forms of media) is helpful to their education.
Video lessons have already been proven to teach underprivledged children in africa. However, the MPAA won’t let these kids be educated for free.
sigh. Corporations do not and should NOT own them.”
Ahahahahahahahaha lee want our childrn to do the right thing” yes yes oh yay the right thing is for people who sit on there ass all day to earn money that isn’t theirs in the fort place and thy make more I it that those people who work their ass off curing cancer, moral karma is coming to kick your ass movie industry, what has your business done to benefit humanity except deepen your alredy hefty pockets? I call it intellectual property natural selection
This is such a waste of time. It doesnt matter what you tell kids, when they realize they can get stuff for free they’re going to download it anyway.
This is a frugal attempt at something hopeless.
Lol, as usual they are wrong, and it’s us pirates doing the right thing =]. Plain and simple, and not too hard to understand.
I wonder what would happen if someone one day started advertising all the reasons why piracy is good? I know for a start that we would’t have to straight out lie about what we are trying to tell people to make people agree… It’s all common sense =]
This is why we can’t have nice things and humanity is stuck in its current greedy jew state.
@1
CoE is Anglican, not Christian.
FUCK sake, this is fucked up. EU parliament should ban such activities in EU
get them through the grinder while they’re young. You send them to schools, now we shape them to what we want them to be. Quiet, working, paying and submissive.
Mkay kids, don’t pirate, piracy is bad, mkay?
No one is gunna take this shit seriouly, its just gunna be a fail
@ 47
“Mkay kids, don’t pirate, piracy is bad, mkay?”
ROFL
Hitler youth comes to mind about al this
seems America is borrowing a lot of nazi ways these days….
wtf are they really aiming for ?
seriously anyone?
AND when ya tell someone pot is bad what do a lot more do? GO smoke pot.
YA this is only going to back fire large once they get out in world and start asking real questions.
about:mozilla
WTF? trying to push something into the skulls of children, who don’t have the ability to hear both sides’ arguments and make their own opinion?! (even if the children decided to support pro-copyright then, it would still be more fair, when both sides had a chance to speak)
Alright, from now on, I start teaching my primary-school sister (though she is pretty smart for her age), that piracy under circumstances like these is completely, totally and absolutely RIGHT, and that without it, she wouldn’t have even the half of the computer games she now has, which I’ve downloaded from the Internet :o)
And will also try to propose to her, that, should some “delegation” like this visit some of her classrooms, she asks the teacher if she can go to the WC, because she’s feeling sick from that kind of brainless speech (obviously she can’t say bullshit, as on a primary school, that would get her into trouble :D )
Cheers
Fail
Didn’t they try the same thing on us with D.A.R.E.? I mean, sure it worked when I was a child but once I had the ability to choose for myself… let’s just say that it didn’t work.
More of the same is right, spending millions on something that has been proven psychologically and statistically to NOT WORK!
some more pirate recruiters
Intellectual Pirate Awareness Foundation
cool!!
Quote:
some of which will penetrate Australia’s schools and directly target children
____________________________________
ya right ,, go into a classroom and tell the kids that pirating is bad and they need to stop ,, brillant
@2:
Just like kids turning in their families in 1984? Maybe a bit drastic a comparison, but what it brought to mind.
The problem with society is that the government seems to think that they have ANY right WHATSOEVER to tell children how to think. They don’t let them reason and find their own answers, come to their own conclusions, /think for themselves/; that’s the government’s job, babe.
First of all, copyright and theft have absolutely nothing to do with each other:
Copyright is about information/data, and infringement is a civil matter.
Theft has to do with physical objects, and is a criminal matter.
This distinction is very clear in the laws of all countries (at least any that I know of).
This makes the ‘AFACT’ acronym a non-sensical one.
Secondly, education is not about only teaching kids/youngsters Your point of view on some issue, but many different points of view, so they can decide which view to take (or come up with an entirely different point of view) for themselves.
Otherwise, it’s called Indoctrination:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indoctrination
So they are going to go into schools (probably primary schools too) with the sole aim to influence the children(not adults because children are more easily influenced)in a way which will financially benefit themselves?
They will undoubtedly have very flawed arguments, statistics and outright lies on their side.
And because children are vulnerable to being influenced when they are young it will probably work. Now I’m going to take a guess that you won’t be able to opt out of this.
I can not see how teaching children to believe people have the right to own ideas, sounds, pictures, 1s and 0s etc is any different from teaching them things like religion or political views at school.
Unfortunately when we are first born we know very little and learn from those around us. Since little children know no better they will probably believe it.
It is one thing to equally present two sides of an argument to someone and let them decide themselves whats right. But it is another thing to make their mind up for them by basically brainwashing them from a young age. They don’t teach religion at public schools so why this? Basically this is despicable!
THINK OF THE CHILDREN???!!!
Funny how the Hitler youth had the exact same idea.
Educate the children.
Can these people understand the concept of teaching forbidden knowledge?
I didn’t know anything about “piracy” or the lark until late teens. Until then, I bought it if i knew it was good. All they are really doing is going
“Hey! Hey Guys! you outta money! Don’t go Here, Here, or Here to download it for free! We’re serious! we’re the internet Po-Lice”
we also need to tell them that having sexual thoughts is evil, and if they don’t believe in god then they will go to hell when they die
Honestly most people dont really care. If they download something most of the time if they couldnt download it they wouldnt buy it anyways. Downloading software and other stuff most likely helps the industry in one perspective that if that movie was actually any good and wasnt like Epic movie and many other spin off’s they may actually buy it.
Good Luck with your painfull job.
Just like teaching anti-drug messages in schools reduces overall worldwide illegal drug consumption (the worlds second-largest market, after guns). ;)
Good luck, IPAF, it will cost a ton of money for no real gain. In fact, it could very well have the opposite effect.
“… encourage children to take the opinion that piracy has nothing but a negative impact, …”
In other words, they want to brainwash children with false information serving their own good?
We need to bring in laws to make it treason to spread propaganda in places such as schools and workplaces….
“Sharing is wrong, greed is good.”
That’s copyright propaganda in a nutshell.
Joe Camel and his “peddling cigarettes to kids” = bad, but somehow media companies “peddling ideas to children” = good. I ask one question: WTF?
69!!
Good.
M@
Too late. IMO the younger Aussie generation (yes, I’m an Aussie), at least the majority of them, see nothing wrong with downloading/sharing files.
AFACT, mark my words, younger Australians will not give a damn about your education attempts – it’s simply too culturally ingrained.
Oh, and AFACT, take your fricken lawsuit against iiNet (an Aussie internet co.), and spend the $$$ on charity instead.
“It will be our job to educate, and to create understanding and appreciation of the value of intellectual property to that end.”
She means, we will create our customers of the future. Obviously brainwashing people is the way of the future, who needs to think for himself anymore…
Ask not what ur country can do for u, ask whether ur country and it’s businesses need another slave!
This is the lost generation all over again.
Atleast their acrynym is accurate.
I Preditct A Fail.
iPAF? Am I the only one who finds this enigmaticly amusing? (double meaning involved :) )
As an Australian who long since finished school I feel safe to say that this is a waste of time for all involved. Firstly, most Australian schools are terrible. Most of the education is up to you because you will learn bugger all otherwise. Potential teachers in ym state need an OP (like a grade average) of 19 (out of 25, 1 being the best) to get a teaching degree. Talk about the blind leading the blind. They probably need the anti-piracy people to come give a talk to take up the lesson plans or lack thereof.
Secondly, it won’t stick. The second they leave school they will mingle with the people who were not in school at the time of these “teachings”. What do you think is going to happen? Yup. Start downloading movies and songs that they cannot find elsewhere.
Good going Australia! By the way, how is that giant firewall going…
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