Pirates of the Red Sea
The movie industry is getting worried about online downloads:
Also, as early as next month the industry will begin promoting a “stealing is bad” message in schools, teaming up with Junior Achievement on an hourlong class for fifth through ninth graders on the history of copyright law and the evils of online file sharing. The effort includes games like Starving Artist, in which students pretend to be musicians whose work is downloaded free from the Internet, and a crossword puzzle called Surfing for Trouble.
Why are these corporations allowed to spread their advertising into schools? Are these students (or their schools) getting paid to listen to this? Shouldn’t they be studying maths or geography rather than learn how to become better consumers?
I’m not defending internet piracy, but I have to say there are good sides to it too. When Egypt’s censors banned Matrix Reloaded, for instance, within a day I had several friends who had acquired a pirated copy on the internet. Once they were done watching it, these ordinary middle class Egyptians couldn’t really see what the problem was. In countries were the flow of information is controlled, getting information of any kind is difficult. The internet is making controlling that information more and more difficult, which in my book is a good thing, even if you get downsides like piracy and child pornography along with it.
