MPAA and RIAA are about to introduce a copyright course for schoolchildren in the US

Two organizations known to all of us, MPAA and RIAA, which are the most active fighters against the "pirates" and everything connected with them, are going to lobby for the introduction of a copyright course in the USA. At the same time, children will be taught the basics of copyright in kindergarten.

Both organizations announced their intention to teach children the basics of copyright last year. But after the texts of the training materials were presented, the public decided not to skip such materials in their current form. Several discussions were organized, during which the content of the training materials was quite changed, and the authors of the course were forced to add not only copyright, but also free use to the materials (fair use as opposed to copyright).

It is worth noting that a six-level curriculum has already started in some schools and kindergartens in California, as a pilot project. The text of the course was written in collaboration with the California School Library Association, as well as iKeepSafe.

At the same time, the early lecture materials covered copyright somewhat one-sidedly, talking about how good it is to get money for your work, and how badly to violate someone else's copyright, trying to use something (music, video, texts) that is copyrighted not according to the rules .

So, in the old text of the lecture there is the following paragraph: “You are not yet old enough to sell your photos on the Web, but soon you will be able to do it. And you will be grateful if we all respect your work without copying or changing it without your permission. ”

After public criticism, the paragraph was changed, some phrases were removed, but phrases were added that “some authors prefer to distribute their work for free.”

Here is the old text of one of the lectures:



Here is the new one, amended:



In addition, if earlier in the lecture text there was a section that said that images and music protected by copyright should not be used in PowerPoint's own presentations (for work in the classroom ), then now, on the contrary, it is said that if such a presentation is used only in the classroom, then everything is fine.

Similar changes were introduced throughout the text of the lectures, so that we can say that students will receive information not only that they need to pay for everything and demand money, but also that it is possible to use some materials for free, and offer their own copyrighted materials to other people are also free. The full text of the final version of the lectures on copyright for schoolchildren can be obtained at this link (English).