by Rebecca Dana
Iris Beckwith uses a 5-foot-tall robot to help teach elementary school students why it is illegal to download movies and music from the Internet.
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Children generally don't see why downloading is a problem, she said.
"These kids are in la la land," Beckwith said after the presentation to fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders at St. Bernadette's School in Springfield, in which "Safety Bot" gave advice on how to be safe online and Internet etiquette. "They've grown up thinking that because they can download whatever they want on the Internet, that they should and no one will be the wiser," said Beckwith, a consultant.
What is just as troubling, said Rich Taylor, a spokesman for the Motion Picture Association of America, is that kids at a computer still think they are impossible to catch.
So the industry's effort to educate children too young to appreciate the potential consequences of downloading music, video games or a Hollywood blockbuster comes with this message:
"You may think you're anonymous, but you're not. You may think it's legal, but it's not. And you may think you're not hurting anyone, but you are."
The industry's approach is two-pronged: to terrify and to teach.
"It's a very thick topic, one that's difficult for kids to understand," Taylor said. "What we're trying to do is get it back to 'Stealing is wrong.' "
Scaring file-sharers
Last month, the Motion Picture Association announced that it would begin suing those who download, one by one, to scare file-sharers away from the practice many believe has taken a chunk out of industry revenue in recent years. With this, the movie industry followed the lead of the Recording Industry Association of America, which started its first lawsuits in fall 2003.
Hollywood estimates that it loses $3.5 billion a year to piracy, and, although statistics for unregulated, rampant, online file-sharing are difficult to gather, a 2003 analysis by the media consulting firm Viant Group found that roughly 500,000 movies are downloaded illegally every day.
This fall, U.S. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft met with 100 area high school students to give oomph to the no-stealing lecture. Ashcroft spoke alongside songwriters and convicted intellectual property thieves.
At the same time, both industries have been working with schools and private educators to figure out how to communicate online ethics in a way young people can understand.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6708676/
Moral: If you download illegally, Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom will come and pillage you for all you're worth.
Thanks to J m HofMarN for this one!