A new activity patch has been designed by the Motion Picture Association of America for 52,000 Scouts in the Los Angeles area to emphasize the ills of piracy to a generation that has grown up finding free music and video clips on the Internet.
Gary Gentile of the AP reports:
"We have a real opportunity to educate a new generation about how movies are made, why they are valuable, and hopefully change attitudes about intellectual property theft," Dan Glickman, chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America, said Friday.
Scouts will be instructed in the basics of copyright law and learn how to identify five types of copyrighted works and three ways copyrighted materials may be stolen.
"Part of being a Scout is being trustworthy and part of being trustworthy is being able to follow the rules in our society," said Victor Zuniga, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Area Council.
Here is the pdf of the MPAA "Respect Copyrights" curriculum and a picture of the badge.
Here is a link to a previous post of mine on the Mises Blog on Tales From The Public Domain: BOUND BY LAW?, a project of Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain. It is a look at the battlefield that is intellectual property law told through the eyes of a documentary filmmaker. The comic is quite insightful and does point out the insanity and ridiculousness that make up today's copyright laws.
Would it be wrong to point out the words of William Goldman in his book Adventures in the Screen Trade on "Hollywood Realities" and the goings on in the early booming decades of the film industry?
"The resulting flood of product was, ultimately, responsible for the existence of Hollywood. All the major studios paid a fee to Thomas Edison for the right to make movies: The motion picture was his invention and he had to be reimbursed for each and every film.
But there was such a need for material that pirate companies, which did not pay the fee, sprang up. The major studios hired detectives to stop this practice, driving many of the pirates as far from the New York area as possible. Sure, Hollywood had all that great shooting weather. But more than that, being three thousand miles west made it easier to steal. (The more things change, etc., etc.)"
