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Teenagers unaware of piracy laws |
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Written by Felix Da Silva (fdasilva@bitnip.com)
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Thursday, 14 February 2008 |
 Teenagers in the US would be "less likely" to illegally download content from
the Internet if they understood the laws governing the use of online digital
content according to a survey done by Microsoft.
The survey by Microsoft found here, says about half of those teens surveyed said they were not familiar with piracy related laws, and only 11 percent of them clearly understood the current rules for
downloading images, literature, music, movies and software.
Teens who were
familiar with downloading rules credited their parents, TV or stories in
magazines and newspapers, and Web sites — more so than their schools — as
resources for information about illegal downloading.
Sherri Erickson, global manager, Genuine Software Initiative for Microsoft said,
Widespread access to the Internet has amplified the issue of intellectual
property rights among children and teens. This survey provides more insight into the disparity between IP awareness and
young people today and highlights the opportunity for schools to help prepare
their students to be good online citizens. Microsoft has enlisted Topics Education, a developer of custom curricula, to
help launch the pilot of a broad-based curriculum for middle school and high
school educators titled “Intellectual Property Rights Education.”
Microsoft is also launching an interactive Web site, http://www.mybytes.com, where kids can develop
their own intellectual property and assign usage rights by mixing music online
to create a custom riff that they can download as a ring tone.
I never really thought I'd say this but Microsoft gets it. They went out to learn the cause of piracy and tries to prevent piracy from happening through education and interaction.
Unlike the music or movie industries which has a short sighted approach of trying to stop piracy as it happens rather than preventing it from happening. Not to mention, they piss a lot of people (paying consumers included) while with their 'war on piracy'.
Click here for more information on the findings of the survey.
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