The producer tells her sad story with her fists curled inside the sleeves of an oversize hooded sweatshirt: "I'm, like, losing my job, and maybe I, like, need that money for my family or something." The cause of her consternation: peer-to-peer file-sharing, which she says is devastating Hollywood.

The "producer" doesn't produce movies any more than the "actor" or "singer" sitting beside her acts or sings. They are all seventh-graders at Sierra Vista Junior High in Southern California's Santa Clarita Valley. They're engaged in a role-playing game, as directed in a lesson plan sponsored and bankrolled by the Motion Picture Association of America. The curriculum - called "What's the Diff?: A Guide to Digital Citizenship" - has reached slightly more than half a million junior high students since it began this school year.

The class is led by Jean Sutton, a volunteer from Junior Achievement, a nonprofit business education group. She hands each student a card that explains what role they are to play - actor, director, producer, singer, computer user, or set builder - and what their viewpoint is supposed to be. "It's good you have your own opinions," Sutton tells them. "But I want you to do the activity based on what the little piece of paper says."

Five of the pieces assert that file-sharing is unequivocally immoral. "Illegal file-swapping has turned my dreams into nightmares," reads the singer's card. "When people illegally download, they are stealing from my family and me," reads the set builder's. The single counterpoint is represented by the computer user. He defends file-sharing largely on the grounds that he won't get caught: "Last time I checked, the Internet police didn't exist."

The activity seems less a role-playing exercise than a regurgitation. Sutton asks each student "why file-swapping's such a big deal." The kids gamely paraphrase from their squares of paper. "The directors don't get paid when the people download movies," says a director. "If only, like, one person is buying the movie and everyone else is copying it, the people in the movies can't, like, make the set things," says a set builder. "It's costing me, like, big bucks because people, like, download them instead of buying them," says a producer. The children, most from the middle-class suburb of Santa Clarita, participate enthusiastically and don't appear troubled, or even bored, by the rote nature of the exercise.

"What's the Diff?" got its start when the MPAA, the trade group representing Hollywood studios, approached Junior Achievement with $100,000 and a notion to get its ideas about the ethics of file-sharing into the classroom. It was written by JA staffers and consultants in close communication with Craig Hoffman, the director of corporate communications at Warner Bros. Entertainment.

The point of the program, says MPAA spokesperson Rich Taylor, is for "students to reach their own conclusions about being a good digital citizen." The real point, of course, is to protect Hollywood from the fate of the record industry. While the music business has already suffered from file-sharing, the film industry has so far been largely unaffected. In fact, according to an Adams Media Research report, Hollywood has seen revenue rise 27 percent in the same four-year period that the recording industry went into free fall. So consider this a preemptive attack, a giant guilt trip on the file-sharing public. Compared to the recording industry's strategy to sue everyone in sight, "What's the Diff?" seems downright enlightened.

Critics aren't mollified. The program presents a "tremendously one-sided view of copyright," says Wendy Seltzer, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "There's no balance; it's entirely corporate driven. If anything, it's an exercise in how efficiently you can brainwash students."

Seltzer might be considerably less concerned had she sat in on a recent lesson at Commerce Middle School in a working-class neighborhood of Yonkers, New York. As in Santa Clarita, the kids here read their stock responses, but unlike their Californian counterparts, they do it in a sullen monotone, as if reciting some musty poem. Only the computer user, an animated wiseass in baggy jeans, delivers a passionate response. "It's not hurting anybody. I'm not selling it. I'm using it in my home." The other kids nod energetically at this, and hands shoot up throughout the room. One boy says, "If the computer user is just downloading music, how are the carpenters who work on movie sets being hurt?" The other students regard this as irrefutable logic, and a chorus of "mm-hmm" and "that's right" fills the room.

A confident, articulate girl in cornrows and too-tight jeans speaks up. "Look, you preview what's on the CD, and if you like it, you go out and buy the CD because you get a booklet and, like, extra stuff with it." This, whether she knows it or not, is exactly the argument that the major music labels are hearing from many of their own consultants.

As the class winds down, several kids say that downloading files from Kazaa is no different than borrowing a library book. "After you get it, you're just going to delete it anyway," a boy says. JA volunteer Evan Snyder, who's good with the kids, gets a crafty look on his face. "How is that different from me just borrowing a Ferrari from the dealership and just passing it around to my friends?"

The girl in the cornrows snaps back, "Well, that's fine! You're borrowing it! As long as you give it back." The bell rings, and the students bustle into the well-worn hallways of their middle school.
From wirednews.com
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.05/mpaa.html

Let me be the first to say that the New York kids seem to have it together. I hope they come down to the high schools in Florida... I'd love to give them some of MY opinions on filesharing as both an artist and semi-filmmaker.

why dont you give them to us....

I'm amazed the school districts are allowing this.

I hate people that talk like this, its quite irritating to have a bunch of adult morons walk into an already screwed up education system, and fuck it up some more with rhetoric like this. I dread the day I have a kid and she comes home shouting "Daddy daddy file sharing is like wrong, I am a banana." This isnt America's problem, I am sure we can find better use of the education system than, like discussing like the morality of like file sharing ok, totally.

Well, these school campaigns and commercials show everyone that the "little guys" such as stunt man and set builders are hurt the most.- Ha. Since when did they get a share of the profit? Set builders and stuntman get paid the same regardless of how much downloading is going on. Now if they wanted to be truthfull, they would send in a man dressed in an italian suit and have him whine about how he can't afford a yacht now.

God if i could magically make a copy of a Ferrari from the dealership I would be in heaven. If reality worked like P2P it would be the perfect utopia where everyone has every single thing they want and it requires almost nothing.

This is what a junior high school kid does when he see them and they are trying to talk to him
lalalalalalalalalalalalala I can't hear you lalalalalalalalalalalalalalala.

Man I would LOVE for them to come into my high school and try to talk this shit into us. 95% of the school has computers and SURPRISE SURPRISE 95% downloads from p2p. After those ppl trying to brainwash us got egged and beaten I would gladly explain to them the power of P2P and by the end of the day they would all become good little Kazza Lite Users

"This is your brains on drugs" worked real well too.

LMAO, the funniest thing is like you said those stupid commercials with the pop girl and what not. Yeah I am sure that p2p is the sole purpose or the loss of their jobs. Its not some douche bag executive that decides to cut back on spending, lmao, since when has the movie industry cared so much about the little guy.

This is like that insipid commercial with Ben Afflek and James Cameron in it, only now they're putting words into the mouths of kids.

But we all know the kids are only doing what the teacher says so they don't get in trouble. After all is said and done, they'll still go home and download.

How are we stealing from the set designers family? Hmmm? Did the set designer bankroll the film? Did he/she take money out of his/her pocket to build all those sets? Of course not. The set design is bankrolled by the production studio so if the argument that money is being taken holds water, then we're taking it from the production studio and not the set designer. The set designer will still get their pay, only now the production studio won't be able to bankroll that romantic comedy with a script similar to last month's romantic comedy staring such and such big name actor and actress. That would actually be a good thing seeing as we don't need another round of romantic comedies with the same identical plot lines. In fact, I consider those the reality TV of movies.

But I digress. The point is, trying to teach kids is like talking to a wall. In other words, nothing gets through. I'm wont to remember when I was in 6th grade and the first Iraq War was going on. We did a mock UN type thing and even though we had little cards to help us, we didn't solve a thing because there was no room for opinion or original ideas. In the end we voted to slap Saddam on the wrist and hit him with sanctions. One guy had a brilliant idea, but it was shot down by the teacher because it wasn't "acceptable".

The campaign could be effective. Children do learn very easily, just not what they are supposed to. The campaign in schools, combined with a very one-sided media view and a few references in kids TV (google disney+"pround family"+napster) would work. But only until the kids become teenagers. Then the teen rebellion takes over, and popularity is everything. Supplying the rest of the school with free movies usually leads to popularity.

It would be intresting to consider the copying-a-car situation. Someone should write a short story based on it. Perhaps a researcher invents a universal copier. They are ordered to destroy the device, but one prototype is lost. The copier is able to copy itsself. A few weeks later everyone has a copier, the economy is not just collapsed but non-existant and people have nothing to do but try to pass the time. Dangerous sports become popular when people realise they can make backups of themselves, people seal themselves up in self-contained bunkers to avoid the gangs of bored bikers trying to find some way -any way - to pass time, while someone manages to get hold of a few miligrams of weapons-grade plutonium and a good idea of what exponential growth can do.

"She hands each student a card that explains what role they are to play - actor, director, producer, singer, computer user, or set builder - and what their viewpoint is supposed to be"

why not give them the chance to figure out their own position.. nope.. you dont do that because the tables would be radically turned.

THE NERVE OF THIS SCUM, TEACHING OUR CHILDREN TO FORSAKE PERSONAL AND CONSUMER RIGHTS!

"people seal themselves up in self-contained bunkers to avoid the gangs of bored bikers trying to find some way -any way - to pass time, while someone manages to get hold of a few miligrams of weapons-grade plutonium and a good idea of what exponential growth can do."


ok.. first off people can "copy" cities as backups too. meaning nuclear weapons would become mute.

The gangs of bikers would only cause harm to the "backup copies" of people.

or people could "copy" armor plates to put up when the supposed mad max types come around.

Copy air into the ground to dig out a fortress I suppose

City backups would require coordination. As the overnight distruction of the economy in that way would probably result in the instant collapse of all government, this coordination is unlikely . But many individuals might send backups to distant cities, in case of natural disaster.

There would probably be a few huge projects arranged by enthusists. If you had all the resources you want and replicator technology, what would you build? I would go for a starship. Just replicate fuel as required. Perhaps replicate a huge radio transmitter and try to signal aliens? Competitions for tower construction? No shortage of space, just set up in the desert with replicated water, or replicate fuel for an antartic heater, or replicate a modular floating city. Really, no limits.

The gangs would copy themselves. A gang might consist of just one person, replicated thousands of times. Such gangs would constantly fight themselves, but would be more than adiquate for destroying everything in their path. Nothing short of a replicated mountain would stop them, and that only because they wouldn't usually have the knowledge to replicate a tower.

The only business with any profit left would be research into ways to prevent replication. Either ways to prevent equipment being disassembled to fit into the replicator, or a short-range radio linked to an autodestruct mechanism.

I think most kids already know that now that the Internet (automobile) is here, the old methods of music distribution (horse and buggy) have become obsolete.

Things change, the RIAA can adapt or die. (let's hope for the later.)

Shmoo, of Electric Gypsy
Support Local and Independent Music!

I'd hope that they'd come to my school,were it not for the fact they'd brainwash some of the kids...Very few of the people in my school are what one would call "intelligent".

Oh,but the look of horror on the person who is presenting this when they have me in there,and realize I know what I'm talking about.
Come to my school!

This is nothing but a bunch of goddamn brainwashing on the children of this country.

I, for one, will not allow my son participate in this bullshit activity in his school. And if they don't like it, THEN TOUGH MOTHERFUCKING SHIT YOU BUNCH OF RECORD-PRODUCING NAZI PIGFUCKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

wow axxis.. you should realise that holding in all that hostility is dangerous to your health
actually, I've been waiting for something like this to happen. We've all (well, most of us ) have seen the ads. I agree with the parts about how setmakers and the like don't get paid out of the movie, they get paid by the production company. But while we're on the subject...
what about the music side?
sound engineers? session musicians? the guys who set up the studios? janitors? would these be the people that RIAA would use a campaign like this to flaunt?
In any business, you have the "little guy".. the person who operates behind the scenes to make things happen, and often gets paid before anything really gets going. It's the janitor at the bowling alley, the annoying salesperson at the Gap, the cashier at Walmart. You almost never hear about that stuff though. It's always "The Company" lost money.. "The Company" is showing a profit/loss.
I know it's a bit convoluted, but my question is, why does the MPAA do this? They really HAVE to know that we (and most of the public) are smart enough to realise that these people do not get paid per movie, or with money the movie they are working on makes. They get paid out of the budget the production company sets and by rates that are established by the various unions. How can the MPAA say that anyone who worked on the set of The Punisher got hurt when copies of it appeared online? They really can't. I've never seen any justfification for this line of attack, except to play on the morals of other small minded people like themselves, who might share the opinion they hold.
ttmmm

They are claiming that file-sharing hurts the little guy, like the set builder, because profit-loss due to file-sharing will cause them to not make as many movies. Thus, even though these workers have already been paid for the work they have done on past movies, they will be hurt because there will be less work for them in the future.

This is the logic they are using. Of course, it is flawed logic because file-sharing has been shown to have the equivolent of ZERO effect on industry profits, so they really have no basis for the argument.

I am surprized that the school systems have not tried to block these evil, corporate driven, brain-washing sessions.

"I am surprized that the school systems have not tried to block these evil, corporate driven, brain-washing sessions."

Ah, but you see, the schools themselves have been brainwashed, and/or paid a handsome sum of money to not protect the students, and only spread the propaganda of the various industries involved.