Anti-Piracy Badge
This badge would be much better.
I’ve been reading a book called “The Scout’s Companion”. It’s a book that contains lots and lots of facts about Scouting. Some facts you probably already know, some you’ll find useful (such as how to cook an egg in a potato) and some are just crazy. It’s a brilliant book – buy it here!
The other day I found something in the book that made me laugh, but also made me slightly annoyed at the same time. Here’s an extract:
“Pirate Patrol”
If you’ve ever been tempted to download some freebies from Napster or Limewire watch out that you don’t do it with an LA Boy Scout in the room – they might report you in the name of a new badge launched in 2006. Launched by the Motion Picture Association of America and the Los Angeles Boy Scouts, the anti-piracy badge – officially named the Respect Copyrights patch – has been designed to help raise awareness about respecting copyrights and change attitudes towards intellectual property theft. For those young Scouts who don’t include the phrase “intellectual property” in their everyday slang, it refers to the concept that “ideas” are valuable, they can be owned and protected from other people stealing them by copyrighting, trademarking or patenting. The badge aims to teach kids how to identify counterfeit CDs ad DVDs, the consequences of film and music piracy and that protecting them is important to their local economy. If the scheme is a success it will be launched to other scouts between 6 and 21 years old throughout California and the rest of America, although a closer look at the ‘acquired’ playlists of some Scouts’ iPods might open a whole new can of worms.
I did a bit of research on the badge from other sources and found the curriculum here.
To me this badge seems more like propaganda than an achievement and I don’t think it should have a place in Scouting. Scouts should want to do their best to help make the world a better place, and I don’t see how this fits in. The curriculum doesn’t even give a complete picture of the “issue”. Consider these points:
- Would the people actually buy the content in the first place?
When the industry spits out the figures, it doesn’t take into account the fact that a lot of people wouldn’t be interested in buying the product anyway. When this is the case, there aren’t any losses to profits at all - Could it lead to more customers?
Many people will listen to a song on the radio (for free), realise they like it, and buy the album or single. This could also happen with filesharing – many people have a “try before you buy” attitude and choose to pay for content if they like it. Could filesharing be used as free advertising? - Is it actually killing the industry?
Way before my time, people were scared radio would kill the music industry. But it didn’t. Then they were scared home cassette taping would kill the industry. But that didn’t either. Nor did video cassettes kill cinema. Could the fear of file sharing be yet another false alarm? - And finally, does the industry actually care about people getting hurt, or do they just care about making huge profits?
So when you’ve had a think about the argument, please leave a comment! I’d love to hear your opinion on the matter.
