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Hong Kong Boy Scouts to Protect IP

Posted by Zonk on Tue May 03, 2005 02:08 PM
from the go-forth-brave-soldier dept.
Government Media It's funny. Laugh. Patents Politics
phresno writes "Declan McCullagh at C|net's News.com has a short article on the development that the Hong Kong Boy Scouts Association has teamed up with the MPA to create an intellectual property merit badge. Mike Ellis of the MPA hopes this program will 'provide thousands of young people -- future leaders -- with a better understanding of the value of intellectual property.' Those with tinfoil hats will surely be thinking of the youth in Orwell's 1984."
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[+] Your Rights Online: Hong Kong Using Children to Hunt for Piracy 259 comments
westcoaster004 writes to tell us that according to The New York Times the Hong Kong government will be using some 200,000 youths to scour the internet for piracy. Members of the Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, and nine other youth organizations will be drawn from with the first 1,600 being "sworn in" this Wednesday. From the article: "Tam Yiu-keung, the Hong Kong Excise and Customs Department's senior superintendent of customs for intellectual property investigations, said the program should not raise any concerns about privacy or the role of children in law enforcement. The youths will be visiting Internet discussion sites that are open to all, so the government program is no different than asking young people to tell the police if they see a crime while walking down the street, he said."
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  • Hong Kong Piracy (Score:5, Funny)

    by Excen (686416) on Tuesday May 03 2005, @02:10PM (#12423505) Homepage Journal
    Is it just me, or is Hong Kong the perfect place for the MPAA to start brainwashing the youngest members of our society?

  • Children (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fembots (753724) on Tuesday May 03 2005, @02:10PM (#12423506) Homepage
    Funny how you can still make use of children if you hit the right note.

  • Suggest Your Own Merit Badges Here!!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by rewinn (647614) on Tuesday May 03 2005, @02:10PM (#12423507) Homepage
    How about a GPL Merit Badge?

  • This is sick (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Saven Marek (739395) on Tuesday May 03 2005, @02:11PM (#12423514)
    Let me be one of the first to say this is absolutely sickening. Boy scouts are about honor and doing what is right and about self reliance and about all other good things like that. Not about serving commercial interests.

    What next they have a McDonalds Merit Badge given to the kids who can eat a quarter pounder a day all week for supporting a good old american company? Well it means the same thing.

    • Re:This is sick (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 03 2005, @02:13PM (#12423567)

      What next they have a McDonalds Merit Badge given to the kids who can eat a quarter pounder a day all week for supporting a good old american company?

      I hope so. I could sure use the additional "quadruple-bypass-survivor" merit badge.

    • Re:This is sick (Score:4, Insightful)

      by LWATCDR (28044) on Tuesday May 03 2005, @02:18PM (#12423650) Homepage Journal
      "Let me be one of the first to say this is absolutely sickening. Boy scouts are about honor and doing what is right and about self reliance and about all other good things like that. Not about serving commercial interests."
      Frankly I guess I am confused. Is pirating and right? I thought that the main complaint with the RIAA was with there tactics, destruction of the princeable of fair use, and just general nastyness. I mean the FSF uses the very same IP laws to go after people that break the GPL. Are they just as evil since they go after violators of their IP as does the RIAA?
      I really thought it was about keeping your rights to privacy not piracy.

    • Re:This is sick (Score:5, Informative)

      by brontus3927 (865730) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <3ardrawde>> on Tuesday May 03 2005, @02:32PM (#12423857) Homepage Journal
      With the exception of maybe 5% (2% who earn the rank of Eagle, and maybe 3% who care but aren't able to make it that far) of Boy Scouts, scouting is about being in a social club. There are over 100 merit badges, maybe 2 dozen relate to the core of scouting. The rest are things that started out as an opportunity to educate young people on technologies (like Computers and atomic energy), become horribly out of date because there isn't enough interest in updating them, and scouts (if they can find a leader certified to sign off on that badge) getting them to have a longer list of badges. When I was a scout in the 90's, my troop (which was an Eagle generating powerhouse, averaging 2/year in a troop with a membership ~30) more than half of the merit badges didn't have anyone qualified to teach them. I went to a jamboree to get my Computers merit badge, and the book had images of an Apple IIG!

      Below are the requirements for the Computers Merit Badge which was "updated" a few years ago:

      1. Give a short history of computers. Describe the major parts of a computer system. Give four different uses of computers.
      2. Do the following:
        1. Tell what a program is and how it is developed.
        2. Give three examples of programming languages and what types of programming they are used for.
        3. Describe a source program and an object program.
      3. Show how the following may be stored in computer memory: text, numbers, pictures, and sound.
      4. Do THREE of the following:
        1. Use a database manager to create a troop roster, providing name, rank, patrol, and telephone number of each Scout. Sort the register by rank, by patrol, and alphabetically by name.
        2. Use a spreadsheet program to develop a weekend campout food budget for your patrol.
        3. Use a word processor to write a letter to parents of your troop's Scouts, inviting them to a court of honor. Use the mail merge feature to make a personalized copy of the letter for each family.
        4. Use a computer graphics program to design and draw a campsite plan for your troop.
      5. Do TWO of the following:
        1. Visit a business or industry that uses computers. Study what the computer accomplishes and be prepared to discuss what you observed.
        2. Use a computer attached to a local area network or equipped with a modem to connect to a computer network or bulletin-board service such as Prodigy, CompuServe, or America Online. Send a message to someone on the network or download a program or file from the network.
        3. Use a general-purpose programming language to write a program application of your choice, subject to approval by your counselor.
      6. Be prepared to discuss several terms used in each of the following categories:
        1. Input/output devices
        2. Storage media
        3. Memory
        4. Processors and coprocessors
        5. Modems
        6. Networks
        7. Electronic mail
        8. Robotics
      7. Be prepared to discuss various jobs in the computer field.
      8. Is it permissible to accept a free copy of a computer game or program from a friend? Why or why not?
      9. Describe several ways in which you and your family could use a personal computer other than for games and recreation.

    • Morals? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mosb1000 (710161) <mosb1000@mac.com> on Tuesday May 03 2005, @02:48PM (#12424053) Homepage
      I thought the Boy Scouts were supposed to morals and leadership skills to future generations. I think respecting other peoples IP falls under the morals category. They already teach you not to plagiarize other peoples work, which is really the same thing, so I don't see why you find this so upsetting. I suppose next you were about to complain that they teach kids not to cheat on tests.
        • Why do the submit and preview keys need to be so close?

          "Obviously spoken like someone who has either never been, or never participated in the program. Your blanket statement reminds me of when Microsoft globally condemns the work of OSS, without even know what it actually does."

      • Re:This is sick (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Enigma_Man (756516) on Tuesday May 03 2005, @02:25PM (#12423761) Homepage
        Right. It's too bad that instead of just keeping to "Please don't copy this music to other folks, thanks" they tack on the "also, pay us more if you want this in other formats, mwahahaha" bit.

        -Jesse
      • Very true.

        Being an assitant scoutmaster (and eagle scout) - I'm very interested in seeing what this merit badge entails.

        Respect for others ideas and creations is good.

        However, the extortion that the RIAA and MPAA are engaging in is terrible.

      • Re:This is sick (Score:5, Insightful)

        by NixLuver (693391) <stwhiteNO@SPAMkcheretic.com> on Tuesday May 03 2005, @02:56PM (#12424144) Homepage Journal
        Of course, that's only if you buy the propaganda of the corporate weasles that have turned "copyright infringement" into "theft"; not equivalent concepts at all. The reason it was called 'copyright' is because - get this weird concept - it granted you sole right to profit from copying of the work for a limited period of time, which is very clearly different from 'ownership'. Remedies were all civil until our 'copyright' and 'trademark' process got turned into "Intellectual Property" by the lobbyists of the "IP companies" - those who would found an empire on a single concept rather than develop new ones often enough to stay afloat.

      • Re:This is sick (Score:4, Informative)

        by Tassach (137772) on Tuesday May 03 2005, @03:04PM (#12424255)
        MPAA DOES have some legitimate gripes
        I don't consider "our business model has been made obsolete by technology" to be a legitimate gripe.

        "Intellectual Property" is a legal fiction, created with the explicit purpose of encouraging progress in the arts and sciences. In the days before costless electronic duplication, granting a temporary legal monopoly on a work was a good strategy to achieve this end. However, modern technology has called into question the validity of this definition of "property". It's legitimate to challenge the notion that a particular combination of words, sounds, and images can be owned for all eternity (even if eternity is purchased on an installment plan).

      • Re:This is sick (Score:5, Insightful)

        by replicant108 (690832) on Tuesday May 03 2005, @03:14PM (#12424394) Journal
        Getting Boy Scouts (of whatever nation) to honor someone else's property etc etc

        "If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."

        http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/ a1_8_8s12.html [uchicago.edu]
      • Since it's a social organization and has nothing to do with the government, I'd suppose theyd feel about the same that a pope in Italy is the religious leader of a large segment of the American people. They wouldn't care. It has nothing to do with government. If the Boy Scouts want to have a silly badge, well so what? It won't be the first silly thing they've done. Get over it.

      • Yes, because excluding gays and atheists from their organization is both honorable and good, right?

        Excluding homosexuals is the new and "acceptable" racism but them excluding atheists isn't surprising...

        The BSA is traditionally quite religion oriented ("do my duty to God..." and all that) and many faiths offer religion awards (which are difficult to obtain I might add). Hell, most BSA troops are sponsored by Churchs!

        In the Troop that I belonged to we had a kid that was an atheist. They kept their mout

      • Re:This is sick (Score:5, Informative)

        by goldspider (445116) <{ardrake79} {at} {gmail.com}> on Tuesday May 03 2005, @02:49PM (#12424077) Homepage
        May I be the first to say "GET BENT!" With that off my chest, might I refer you to our Bill of Rights [house.gov].

        Specifically: "...or the right of the people peaceably to assemble"

        The Boy Scouts, or any private group for that matter, may exclude whomever they so choose, for any reason. This particular group does not believe that homosexuality or atheism are acceptable lifestyles.

        Who are YOU to impose your beliefs upon them? Isn't that the very thing you people are fond of accusing 'conservative' groups of doing?

        It is petty of you to deride an organization that first and foremost encourages community volunteerism and service. It is best that people like you don't associate with the Boy Scouts; your involvement would taint their good work.

        • It's my right when they use government subsidies, meet at public schools, and use public funds. They can do anything they like as soon as they stop all those things.

          • Re:This is sick (Score:5, Interesting)

            by bleckywelcky (518520) on Tuesday May 03 2005, @03:28PM (#12424570)
            Actually, they don't use public resources as much as you may think.

            I was in a scout troop when I was young and had friends in other scout troops. All of our troops used private churches to meet in.

            I recall one scout troop that did use a local elementary school gym for their meetings. However, it is still within their right to exclude gays and atheists from joining their club. If a gay or atheist wanted to walk into the gym, the troop wouldn't force them out (unless of course they were being ridiculous, yelling and screaming or something). If a gay or atheist group wanted to use the gym, they could sign up just like everyone else. Yet, they can exclude straight and religious people from their groups.

            Public resources don't mean that you have to be completely PC when you use those resources. They are just available to the public. If an equestrian club wants to use a public park, but won't allow anyone to join that doesn't have a horse, should they be banned from using that public resource?

            And governmnet subsidies and public funds don't really make their way into the scouts anyhow. Pretty much all of the organization is run by volunteers, scouts pay dues to run their troops. Everyone pays for their own supplies, scout uniforms, scout books, etc. Camping supplies are paid for through fundraisers by the troops. They may take grants for specific projects though, ie: if a grant existed to clean up some wetlands, they might take on that project. But the goal of the grant is to clean up the wetlands, it doesn't care who does it. So the scouts will achieve that goal.

            If you have any facts to back up your claims, I'd like to see them.

          • But it's not a binary world (Score:4, Insightful)

            by PCM2 (4486) on Tuesday May 03 2005, @03:59PM (#12424923) Homepage
            That's a slippery slope you're heading down. Public funds are often used to promote things that are ostensibly in the public interest, but may not hold up to individual scrutiny 100 percent of the time. You might not like it that your local public library keeps copies of "Mein Kampf" and "Huckleberry Finn," but I would argue that a library system that doesn't carry those books on principle is not a library system at all. I might not agree that teaching abstinence is the best way to prevent pregnancy and transmission of STDs among teenagers, but I'm willing to have my tax dollars support groups that teach abstinence to teens, regardless of my opinion of their underlying political slant, because the benefits of teaching abstinence probably outweigh the negatives. (In other words, it's worth a try.) Similarly, you might not agree with everything the Boy Scouts teach, but as an institution it's probably done more good for more boys than it has done harm. It seems a little harsh to suggest pulling public funding on the basis of your personal opinions about the organization's ideology. That way of thinking isn't too far from the idea of withholding public arts funding from art that isn't to your personal taste (something else I disagree with). The world just isn't binary like that. Very few things are "all good" or "all bad," so why insist on trying to impose all-or-nothing solutions on them?

        • Re:This is sick (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Jafafa Hots (580169) on Tuesday May 03 2005, @03:22PM (#12424491) Homepage Journal
          Where did he say they don't have the right to exclude gays?
          Where did he say they had to be forced to include gays? HE DIDN'T.

          All he did is to point out that they are a group of bigoted, homophobic assholes. They have the RIGHT to be bigoted hompophobic assholes, and he has the right to point to them and say "Hey look! A bunch of bigoted homophobic assholes!"

          Why are YOU to impose your beliefs on the parent poster and tell him he has no right to point out that he thinks a group is doing something he considers immoral?

          He is not a hypocrite - the boy scouts are saying homosexuality is bad, the parent poster is saying the boy scouts are bad. You, on the other hand, are implying not just that the parent posters beliefs are bad in your opinion, but that he has no right to express them... the irony and hypocricy of your own statement clearly eludes you.
            • I would personally be less supportive of them if they chose that route

              You'd only be less supportive? That's pretty fucked up. Do you support the KKK for their fantastic parades, even though there's all that "other stuff"?

              The BSA is at least partially supported by government money - mines and yours. They should have to live up standards that don't exclude for reasons like race, religion, and sexual preference.

        • Re:This is sick (Score:5, Insightful)

          by An Onerous Coward (222037) on Tuesday May 03 2005, @04:38PM (#12425385) Homepage
          You seem to be going out of your way to be inflammatory. Not everyone who complains about draconian IP laws are simply out to score free stuff, and--despite your comments--you know it.

          The laws are not always clear cut, and where they are clear cut, they do not always represent the best interests of fairness, justice, or society as a whole.

          Do you think it's right that a documentary maker loses the right to use a shot because it happened to catch a few seconds of a TV playing "The Simpsons?" Do you really think our society is served by keeping "The Grapes of Wrath" under copyright until 2038? What about the literally millions of copyrighted works that no longer have value to the copyright holder, or for whom the copyright holder can't even be found? Should we make sure those works can't be copied either, until those copies which do remain have crumbled into dust? Should researchers face criminal prosecution merely for discussing the copyright protection measures of a new gadget?

          If these are the sort of fair laws that you want Boy Scouts to be taught to respect and obey, then your endeavor is doomed. Even a twelve year old can see that "IP law" is just a big, corporate-sponsored power grab, and any attempts to teach them to respect those laws will only result in their losing respect for all laws.

  • What? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Omega1045 (584264) on Tuesday May 03 2005, @02:11PM (#12423529)
    Funny, my calendar shows May 3rd, not April 1st... this is just weird and scary.

  • BSA (Score:5, Funny)

    by ReverendLoki (663861) on Tuesday May 03 2005, @02:11PM (#12423531)
    You know, it used to annoy me that these [scouting.org] two [bsa.org] shared the same initials. Turns out it was just being a bit prophetic...

  • l33t skillz merit badge (Score:3, Funny)

    by MooseByte (751829) on Tuesday May 03 2005, @02:12PM (#12423536)

    "Hong Kong Boy Scouts Association has teamed up with the MPA to create an intellectual property merit badge."

    I think the "l33t skillz" merit badge is going to trump that one any day of the week...

  • fucking disgusting (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SirSlud (67381) on Tuesday May 03 2005, @02:13PM (#12423551) Homepage
    When a large industry has trouble enforcing rules it effectively set (speficially copyright terms and reductions on what constitutes fair use,) and begins to use Boy Scouts to 'spread the gospel'/'indoctrinate', you have to wonder if the law really is in the interest of the people.

    Yet another case of people serving the economy, as opposed to vice versa.

  • Or.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sanity (1431) * on Tuesday May 03 2005, @02:14PM (#12423576) Homepage Journal
    Those with tinfoil hats will surely be thinking of the youth in Orwell's 1984
    Or in Hitler's Germany. Co-opting the youth is a common tactic for those that wish to exercise control over society. This is easy because the youth tend to be more gullible (sorry but its true, Pokemon anyone?).

    The key question is why the education systems we all pay for are facilitating this (although perhaps not in this particular case, many schools in the US have also been willing channels for pro-intellectual property propaganda).

    • Kids also make the best soldiers since they lack the life perspective of adults (my theory). I was recently reading an article about Ugandan rebels who kidnap children from orphanages to retrain them into miniature killing machines. The truly chilling part was the brutal unquestioning efficiency with which the children carried out executions of prisoners.

  • The Golden Arcade (Score:3, Interesting)

    by HungWeiLo (250320) on Tuesday May 03 2005, @02:14PM (#12423577)
    Visitors to Hong Kong some years ago may remember the Golden Arcade. It was infamous for bootleg software, movies, video games, and anything else that resides on digital media.

    After that got closed down due to U.S. pressure, they started opening up shops in dark alleys. I remember going to one of those places one time. There was a guy who stood in front of the dark alley way (I think I was 12 years old at the time), and I swear there was a 3-carat diamond attached to each of the numbers on his Rolex (and every one of his teeth, it seemed like). Talk about heaven. Through all the cigarette smoke, I was able to make out things like NT5 alpha CDs and PlayStation games. Those were the days. Although it seemed like you needed pretty good English skills to open up one of these outfits, since most buyers were British or Australian.

  • oh man... (Score:3)

    by dR.fuZZo (187666) on Tuesday May 03 2005, @02:16PM (#12423607)
    And I already had problems telling the two BSAs apart...

  • Hmmm... (Score:5, Funny)

    by 0x461FAB0BD7D2 (812236) on Tuesday May 03 2005, @02:17PM (#12423619) Journal
    I know that Scouts learn by doing things, such as tying knots, building camp fires and so on.

    Does this mean they'll learn about IP by using BitTorrent, Exeem and so on? If so, about 70% of Hong Kong deserves that badge.

  • What are the requirements? (Score:3, Funny)

    by pr0t0 (216378) on Tuesday May 03 2005, @02:17PM (#12423635)
    Apparently, you have to be able construct an FBI warning using nothing but your scarf, a pocketknife, and some damned-fine whittling.

    Please post yours below:

  • As an Eagle Scout, (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jockeys (753885) on Tuesday May 03 2005, @02:19PM (#12423668) Journal
    I feel compelled to say that this is utterly wrong. A scout is a lot of things. Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. But not "aware of copyright laws." I don't recall the Scout Oath containing anything about being a corporate shill for the recording industry; merely promising to do your duty to my God, my country, my community, and myself. This is absurd.

  • Those with tinfoil hats... (Score:3, Funny)

    by grumpygrodyguy (603716) on Tuesday May 03 2005, @02:20PM (#12423671)
    Those with tinfoil hats will surely be thinking of the youth in Orwell's 1984.

    Is it OK for those of us without tinfoil hats to think the same thing?

  • 1984? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tktk (540564) on Tuesday May 03 2005, @02:30PM (#12423830)
    Those with tinfoil hats will surely be thinking of the youth in Orwell's 1984."

    Orwell was an optimist.

  • Just a question (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Sv-Manowar (772313) on Tuesday May 03 2005, @02:53PM (#12424117) Homepage Journal
    But who's this going to effect, the kids who go to Boy Scouts are more likely to be the ones who don't pirate films

    The kids who sit at home on Kazaa and doing stuff other than helpful 'community building' activites will be most of the people who pirate things. Nice targetting MPAA. doh!

    • Re:The Badge (Score:5, Funny)

      by Tackhead (54550) on Tuesday May 03 2005, @02:17PM (#12423616)
      > > Those with tinfoil hats will surely be thinking of the youth in Orwell's 1984."
      >
      >Maybe if they keep the property then they will begin to think that the government can't interfere with their own intellectual property. This would be a huge step forward in China.

      slashdot 54550 reporting: lastpost 877602 doubleplusungood refs unevent "great leap forward". Rewrite fullwise upmod anteposting.

      If shinyvictoryhelmet wearing, plusoldposter unknow crimethink! PWN3D :)

      --
      Long live the Greater Eastasian Co-Prosperity Sphere Junior Anti-Piracy League!

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