[Cc-icommons] [Fwd: [WWWEDU] I-Safe Intellectual property lessons] (Nancy Willard)

[Claude Almansi]

Hello

Nancy Willard, of www.csriu.org, digged a bit in the course materials 
for I-Safe Intellectual property lessons (US school curriculum).

What she came up with is both harrowing and comical...

cheers

Claude

-- 
Claude Almansi
www.adisi.ch
claude.almansi at bluewin.ch
091 829 04 51
076 401 85 69

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [WWWEDU] I-Safe Intellectual property lessons
Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 10:26:04 -0700
From: Nancy Willard


Hi Folks,

I have been reviewing the Intellectual property lessons included in the
I-Safe curriculum. For those of you who do not know I-Safe has received $8.5
million dollars from Congress to product Internet safety curriculum for K-12
schools. They are now trying to get their curriculum into schools throughout
the US. (For those of you from other countries, you can snicker at the
absurdities.)

I am sending this message to a mailing list with copyright attorneys, as
well as 3 education mailing lists. I am hoping that some of the attorneys on
the copyright list will be so kind as to reply with an analysis of the
following, with the understanding that I will forward their responses to the
education mailing lists.

Here are just some of the things I have found:

>From grade 5 curriculum

"Intellectual property has value to its owner. The owner has control of what
can be done with his or her intellectual property. So ... It is wrong to
copy or download articles, pictures, or other information from the Internet.
When you download these items, the person who made them doesn't get paid or
get credit for their work, and you are stealing something that belongs to
someone else."

>From grade 7 curriculum

"Intellectual Property is a name used for copyrighted material or something
that is intangible (you can't touch it) Examples are
1. An idea
2. Invention
3. Expression or literary expression
4. Unique name
5. Business method
6. Industrial process
7. Chemical formula
8. Computer program process
9. Presentation

For example, a unique name -- no one else can take the name Disney and use
it."

Also in Grade 7 curriculum under a discussion on Plagiarism:

"Not only is it cheating, it is stealing. And there are possible
Consequences:
1. Fail the class
2. Fail the assignment
3. Suspension or expulsion from school
4. Could affect college eligibility
5. Lose your job
6. Get sued in court"

Grade 8 curriculum

Now we get to an intellectual property theft trial. The defendant is alleged
to have "willfully stolen from numerous sources and deprived several of
their livelihoods." Witness 1 is the lead singer in a band who discussed how
people are downloading their music and they are losing money. Witness 2 is a
photographer who put some of her photos on the Internet to sell them but
people are just downloading them. Witness 3 is a highly respected writer who
is mad that "hoodlums" do not give him credit for his work. Witness 4 is a
Language Arts teacher who said that the defendant turned in material written
by witness 3 for an assignment. Witness 5 is the sister of the defendant who
was angry that the defendant downloaded a software game with a virus that
made her computer crash. She testified that he downloads music and games all
of the time. Witness 6 is a friend of the defendant who also downloads music
and games. Witness 7 is the defendant who testifies that he takes things
because they are there and that because other people make so much money it
is OK.

The prosecution closing: "By the defendant's own words -- he did not care
that he was taking music and videos without paying. In fact, he thought it
was OK because the companies make too much money. We cannot allow this kind
of theft to occur. We need to make a statement that you cannot get away with
this kind of behavior just because it is Internet based theft. Intellectual
property is still property and as such its theft should be punishable, as
would any other criminal act. The evidence is clear. The defendant is
guilty."

A little later: "Judge response to a Not Guilty verdict: As a judge, it is
my responsibility to see that the established law is upheld. Although it may
appear commendable to some, the jury has passed judgment without regard to
the current laws, and therefore the verdict must be overturned at this time.
The defendant is thereby found guilty, and sentencing will be at a later
date."


I look forward to your sage responses.

Nancy



-- 
Nancy Willard, M.S., J.D.
Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use
http://csriu.org



(...)

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