The group, which has the MPAA and RIAA as key members, had just started piloting a kindergarten through sixth grade curriculum on copyright in California schools.

The curriculum was drafted in collaboration with the California School Libraries Association and iKeepSafe, who aim to teach kids the basics of copyright. The lesson materials were rather one-sided, however, often ignoring fair use and the free-to-share copyright licences Creative Commons provides.

These concerns were later picked up by the mainstream press, creating a massive backlash. Responding to the critique the CCI and other partners were quick to state that it was just a pilot and that the final materials would probably be more balanced.

Glen Warren, vice president of the California School Library Association, acknowledged the problems and suggested that the early drafts were coming straight from the content industry.

“We’re moving along trying to get things a little closer to sanity. That tone and language, that came from that side of the fence, so to speak,” Warren commented.

This week, TorrentFreak spotted the final version of the curriculum and it’s clear that the public outcry for more nuance has paid off.

Instead of focusing on enforcement and the things people can’t do with copyrighted content, it now emphasizes that sharing can be a good thing. Creative Commons licenses are discussed in detail and every lesson plan also informs students about fair use.

For example, in the old second grade lesson plan the teacher was supposed to say the following sentence:

“You’re not old enough yet to be selling your pictures online, but pretty soon you will be. And you’ll appreciate if the rest of us respect your work by not copying it and doing whatever we want with it.”

While the above paragraph ignores the fact that some people are happy to share their photos with flexible Creative Commons licenses, it has been completely removed from the final version.

The sentence “we recognize that it’s hard work to produce something, and we want to get paid for our work” has been completely stripped from the lesson plan too. Instead students are reminded that “the projects they created are fun / informative / respectful, and so they may want to share them online.”

The sixth grade lesson material has also been thoroughly updated, as well as the accompanying video which doubled in length to explain fair use.

The changes become clear by comparing the old “purpose” and “key concepts” with the new one. Below is a copy of the old text, with no reference to fair use and Creative Commons licenses.

And here’s the new and improved version, with these two concepts included, and without the strong focus on consequences for “illegal use.”

Another positive change is that instead of warning students against using copyrighted images and music from the Internet in Powerpoint presentations, they are now told that this is totally fine, as long as the material is only shown in class.

Similar changes have been made throughout the entire curriculum, which is now much more balanced than the rather strict and biased view that was presented before.

There’s still one question that lingers in the back of our mind though. Would the curriculum have been as balanced as it is right now if we hadn’t pointed out the problems in the first place?

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

First of all, the amount of time spent dealing with allegations of infringement are huge, according to the study by the Campus Community Project. IT personnel alone spend a mean time of 750 hours at public universities, while private university IT personnel spend around 620 hours a year on this. The shorter time for private institutions generally comes about because of their smaller size, and so smaller search size, and less frequent notifications.

Overall, the costs that come with them are larger than most would expect. It was concluded that between $350,000 and $500,000 is spent annually per institution – directly and indirectly – dealing with copyright infringement notices. The quality of US education has already been questioned (most recently by US presidential candidate Barack Obama in the 3rd Presidential Debate), especially in contrast to the high cost of it. In this light, the costs incurred dealing with copyright infringements are nonsensical.

The study reports that 25% of public universities use a form of technological filtering, such as Copysense, to try and reduce infringements. As noted before, such measures are fairly inaccurate and rarely work. Less common are educational methods, which may be linked with p2p access, as at Missouri S&T. However, most universities and colleges simply disconnect pirating students from the network, and make them promise to never do it again when they want to get back on. Financial penalties are also given, but this is not yet commonplace. We will deal with this in an upcoming piece.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Most of America’s youth already know about and make use of blogs, wikis, BitTorrent sites and podcasts. IBM and the University of Arizona are teaming up to help them put their knowledge to use in the business world by teaching them how to actually create and run businesses around these “social technologies.”

Apparently, the interest in information technology among students has significantly decreased. The Association for Computer Machinery has reported that the number of students choosing to study computer science has dropped by an average of 32 percent over the last 4 years. IBM’s aim is to encourage more of today’s students to pursue a degree in information technology.

Gina Poole, IBM’s head of university relations said that “by gaining skills on Web 2.0 and online communities, students can help businesses and employers better market and sell themselves using powerful online mediums.”

The Univeristy of Arizona will in fact be the first to offer so-called ‘Web 2.0 courses’. Social networking has been a growing trend recently and has created a new set of jobs in the tech industry. The demand for a “community manager” is on the rise. IBM wants to prepare students to fill this position.

The course will help students to understand the concept behind social networking and will promote “leadership qualities, collaboration and peer-interaction” in the classes.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.