One of the key research documents listed on their website is a highly critical review of Professor Lawrence Lessig’s book “Free Culture“. According to the review, Lessig is a “hypocritical demagogue” whose book imposes a “quasi-socialist utopianism” while “demonizing” copyright.

Of course, everybody is entitled to their own opinion but with regard to what’s being taught to youngsters in schools, one should at least try to get the facts right. Unfortunately, the Copyright Alliance screws up badly in this respect.

For example, in one of their their featured reports it is claimed that The Pirate Bay is selling pirated movies and music to its users. “Up until 2006, one of the largest global sellers of pirated films and music files was sold by a company based in Sweden – Pirate Bay,” it reads. Despite their blatant lies in their research reports, they have still managed to convince several schools to use their course materials.

“Think First, Copy Later,” is the working title of the pro-copyright curriculum set to be taught in several schools throughout the US. TorrentFreak contacted Aaron Engley, administrator at West Potomac Academy – one of the schools that plans to use the Copyright Alliance’s material.

Engley told TorrentFreak in a comment, “Our school has a communication and arts focus, we engaged in this relationship [with the Copyright Alliance] to assist our students protect their own intellectual property. We were teaching our students how to produce, but not educating them on how to protect what they produce.”

Of course, the Copyright Alliance itself fails to mention that thousands of artists profit from sharing their work for free, and that the lion’s share of copyright profits go to large corporations. But even if we put that aside, kids should be taught to think critically so they can make up their own minds instead of being brainwashed with pro (or anti) copyright propaganda.

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

The problem with DRM is that it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do. The only people who are negatively affected are honest customers, since pirates will get their DRM-free version off BitTorrent anyway. In fact, DRM seems to produce an increase in downloads over legitimate sales, with the ‘Spore’ fiasco as a recent example.

Public reaction to DRM is not favorable, and has been growing worse (such as when a DRM-based service closes). Even though some retailers have started to sell their goods without DRM, others have not, or have released products selling stuff ONLY in DRM encumbered formats. A prime example of without DRM is Amazon, with its music, and an example of with DRM is Amazon and their Kindle ebook reader. Kindle ebooks are sold complete with DRM, locking the books to a single system. This applies to all Kindle ebooks sold via Amazon.

One of the Kindle e-books looks a little out of place with DRM though. A member of the US-based Students for Free Culture organization informed TorrentFreak that the book Free Culture, by Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig, is available through the service. The book deals with the rise of the copyright situation in the US, and how laws in other areas were changed to keep pace with advances in technology, sometimes making obsolete decades, or centuries of precedent.

The fact that this book is available in a DRM format might not seem all that important, except that the book itself spells out what is wrong with DRM. The book is available as a 100% free download on the book’s official site. However, short of violating the DMCA by circumventing the DRM, it is hard to put the pdf version of the book on the Kindle, exemplifying the problem. Most ironically, though, is that the subtitle of the book is “How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity”, so the book has become its own example.

Prof. Lessig will be giving a keynote speech at SFC’s “Free Culture 08” on October 11th.

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