Hong Kong Boy Scouts to Protect IP 617
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."
Hong Kong Piracy (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hong Kong Piracy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hong Kong Piracy (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hong Kong Piracy (Score:3, Insightful)
What, you missed walking little old ladies across the street, being truthfull and upright, and following the law (the last of which was written by the corporate oligarchy for their own interests)?
What kind of Boy Scout troop were YOU in?
Maybe an overly moral one- but I'm talking more about stereotypes than reality anyway.
Re:Hong Kong Piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
They could issue that one in this country pretty soon.
Baden Powell would spin in his grave (Score:5, Funny)
The new Political Correctness, Explore Your Feminine Side, Gay Is OK, and now IP merit badges would surely make him choke on his undercooked damper-bread.
Re:Baden Powell would spin in his grave (Score:4, Insightful)
There are many paths to the truth. Some are more convoluted than others. Thank goodness the Boy Scouts have finally started to acknowledge that life doesn't come in one flavor. I don't like the IP merit badges anymore than the next geek, but at least my head isn't buried in the sand.
Children (Score:3, Insightful)
Suggest Your Own Merit Badges Here!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Suggest Your Own Merit Badges Here!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
(Yes, I get the joke and yes, funny.)
Frankly, it's a great suggestion. I'd love to have America's youth thinking good things like the Mantra of GPL, instead of bad things like "...let's keep all the good things to ourselves and make some moolah or shut out the little guy"...
Re:Suggest Your Own Merit Badges Here!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Suggest Your Own Merit Badges Here!!! (Score:5, Funny)
You have to make the badge yourself, but you do get the use of patterns and yarn donated by the community.
Of course, then there will inevitably be articles written criticizing you for putting people out of work in the seamstress industry..
Re:Suggest Your Own Merit Badges Here!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
GPL = IP ? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is sick (Score:4, Insightful)
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)
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:3, Funny)
Pish, the really cool one is the "performed-quadruple-bypass-while-in-the-middle-o
(But what do I know, I'm still working on my "stupid-bloody-program-compiles-and-maybe-just-ma
This is ++good! (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, it's a para-military brigade that was originally advertised as a good way to keep young boy's hands busy (i.e. to prevent them... going blind).
So it's a pretty good choice for an organisation who's been attempting through various means to indoctrinate the next generation into their view on copyrights.
Re:This is ++good! (Score:2)
Re:This is ++good! (Score:3, Insightful)
"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 ++good! (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry yours had an agenda.
Thanks for the Idea!! (Score:2)
[Patent Pending on this business method].
Re:This is sick (Score:2)
Re:This is sick (Score:4, Insightful)
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)
Below are the requirements for the Computers Merit Badge which was "updated" a few years ago:
Re:This is sick (Score:5, Funny)
So, to get the Computers Merit Badge, you have to give up all hope of getting the IP Merit Badge?
Re:This is sick (Score:3, Insightful)
Below are the requirements for the Computers Merit Badge which was "updated" a few years ago:
...
connect to a computer network or bulletin-board service such as Prodigy, CompuServe, or America Online.
Prodigy? CompuServe? I think they may want to consider yet another update.
Re:This is sick (Score:3, Insightful)
The thing that I find problematic about this is that the adult world hasn't figured out how much creedence to give IP rights, yet the group in question appears to be indoctrinating the youth. Understanding that Scouting in other countries can work differently, the core values should remain the same. I seem to remember something in scouting about being an upstanding, law-ab
Re:This is sick (Score:3, Insightful)
What? It's completely unambiguous, and there are very clear-cut laws on the books. You Cannot Rip People Off - what haven't we figured out about that?
What you probably mean to say is that the part of the population that doesn't like to pay entertainers for their work haven't yet brainwashed enough eventual voters into thinking that they have an entitlement to free movies and music, and thus we haven't yet changed the laws to make it so
Re:This is sick (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:This is sick (Score:3, Insightful)
What you probably mean to say is that the part of the population that doesn't like to pay entertainers for their work haven't yet brainwashed enough eventual voters into thinking that they have an entitlement to free movies and music, and thus we haven't yet changed the laws to make it so.
You can't "rip-off" a dead person by making a copy of their book. If anything I think most authors would prefer that their work was available forever, instead of deleted from history. In any case the author's wishes d
Re:This is sick (Score:3, Informative)
It is indeed perfectly reasonable to pay ENTERTAINERS for their work. It is not reasonable to pay some bloody cartel which fights tooth-and-claw against any form of distribution medium which they do not control and profit from. Personally, I don't buy CDs, because I think it is wrong for the ENTERTAINERS to get a few pennies out of the twenty dollars I spend to purchase an item that costs all of about five dollars to make and distribute.
The ENTERTAINERS, at least the
Morals? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is sick (Score:4, Insightful)
-Jesse
Re:This is sick (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
Re:This is sick (Score:4, Informative)
"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:3, Insightful)
The key word is a small one: "a". The content industry wants everybody to keep thinking "a" viable business model means "the only possible" viable business model. They also want people to keep thinking "representative government" means company lawyers handing pieces of paper to senators to introduce verbatim as laws. When the big kids play dirty it gives the little kids an incentive to follow suit, and
Re:This is sick (Score:3, Insightful)
Just how profitable are these "traditional ip-backed models" when everyone is copying the "ip" on the net for nothing, despite it being illegal with draconian punishments to do so?
Maybe the reason more people aren't doing it yet is inertia. Intellectually, most people are still stuck in the payment via distribution system and
Re:This is sick (Score:3)
The laws are both draconian and unenforceable. No matter how you change the laws, the unenforceable part will never change. Relying on unenforceable
Re:This is sick (Score:5, Insightful)
"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
Re:Not Theft is still Not Theft (Score:4, Insightful)
2. I wasn't defending copyright infringement, I was explaining how it's not "theft," and why I think it's important not to call it theft.
3. By posting my opinions here, I am lobbying to change the law.
Re:This is sick (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I have an idea for several (Score:3, Funny)
Government Oppression Merit Badge (sponser: US/China/somecountryyoudon'tlike):
Do all of the following:
1. Become a party member
2. Join a mob action intended to silence a group of citizens
3. Burn books which have been found to be 'subversive'
4. Find 6 subversive people in your family or community.
5. Have them sent to work camps.
other badges:
Fascism Badge
Torture Badge (US Army MP's/former South American regimes/school of the americas).
WMD Search Merit Badge
Using Fear as a Tool to dominate the citzen
Re:This is sick (Score:3, Informative)
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)
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.
Re:This is sick (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is sick (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:This is sick (Score:3, Informative)
But it's not a binary world (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is sick (Score:4, Insightful)
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:3, Informative)
Er.. Actually, it isn't. The BSA does not get one red cent of funding from the federal government. Maybe in grants to do something, but not as general funding. The troops are entirely self financed.
As for excluding people based on race and religion? They do not exclude based on race, and the only troops that are
Re:This is sick (Score:3, Insightful)
I happen to run a local Atheists organization, and we welcome all comers. But if I got money from the US government, or was meeting in publ
Re:could be good or bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is sick (Score:3, Insightful)
The Badge (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The Badge (Score:5, Funny)
>
>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!
This has to be a joke (Score:2, Interesting)
In Asia it's all but legal. The problem is so big that mitigating it will take a lot more than a few boyscouts earning merit badges in Intellectual Property.
That is the most absurd think i've ever heard!!! Where is the world coming to?
Re:This has to be a joke (Score:2)
Seems that you're already there! Not to be a grammar Nazi but.. Perhaps you meant "where is this world GOING to?" Or even "WHAT is this world coming to?"
What? (Score:3, Funny)
BSA (Score:5, Funny)
l33t skillz merit badge (Score:3, Funny)
"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...
Re:l33t skillz merit badge (Score:5, Funny)
fucking disgusting (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet another case of people serving the economy, as opposed to vice versa.
ROFL! (Score:2)
Jokes aside, "protecting" intellectual property isn't just something you can do once, but something that will occur over your entire life. When do they get it? How do leaders know that, once they've got this badge, they won't just go back to torrenting stuff? Honestly, this is the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard. What's next, a Coke merit badge (wh
Criminal Element stemming from Boy Scouts? (Score:2)
Re:Criminal Element stemming from Boy Scouts? (Score:3, Interesting)
The real problem with P2P filesharing is that many people don't actually realize that it is illegal. I fix a lot of computers and I have lost track of the amount of times that I have mentioned to someone that they were guilty of distributing copyrighted material illegally only to have them look at me like a deer caught in someone's headlights. Some people understand that what they are doing is illegal, but lots of folks have no idea. These people thought that free music was one of the perks of having an
Re:Criminal Element stemming from Boy Scouts? (Score:3, Insightful)
I tend to agree that popular music is crap. However, millions of people disagree (which is why the music is "popular"). Either way, disregarding someone else's copyrights is hardly ethical.
Which is why I support artists that are outside of the mainstream. There is plenty of quality music where the artists are happy to let you download their work. I support these artists fi
The Hong Kong Boy Scouts? (Score:2)
Re:The Hong Kong Boy Scouts? (Score:2)
Actually, that was The Hong Kong Cavaliers.
I am a veritable storehouse of useless information.
Or.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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).
Re:Or.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Or.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Second, that's Hong Kong we're talking about, not the US, at least for this story.
The "Polticially Correct" speech that's forced in schools these days IS what was warned about in 1984.
Those not saying the "right words" are accused of "thought crimes", or "hate speech" just because they used words someone else didn't like. So much for free speech.
The Golden Arcade (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:The Golden Arcade (Score:2)
The good thing about Hong Kong is that education until 9th grade is compulsory, and English is taught by default. So most people would be able to communicate in basic English, which is enough to work out deals.
oh man... (Score:3)
Hmmm... (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:4, Funny)
What are the requirements? (Score:3, Funny)
Please post yours below:
I Wonder (Score:2)
In other news, (Score:2, Interesting)
- Fascism
- Lawsuits
- Falsifying evidence
- Misinterpreting technlologies they don't understand
Little shits (Score:2, Interesting)
This gives a whole new meaning to "Weblows" [mninter.net]
LK
As an Eagle Scout, (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:As an Eagle Scout, (Score:3, Insightful)
Licking 30,000 stamps will keep you moral. (Score:3, Funny)
And with those impressive tongue muscles, you might as well stay morally straight because the women are gonna LOVE you....
Then again, maybe stamp collecting should be a girl scout badge...
Those with tinfoil hats... (Score:3, Funny)
Is it OK for those of us without tinfoil hats to think the same thing?
Good Training... (Score:2, Funny)
Definitely Orwellian.
Significantly Off Topic... (Score:2, Funny)
1984? (Score:3, Insightful)
Orwell was an optimist.
This is not what you think (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, this "badge" is useless. The number of kids going around buying copy PS2 games, CDs, etc. is amazing in Hong Kong. I'd say over 99% of PS2 games, software, DVDs, etc. in Hong Kong are copies/counterfeit. No doubt, they'll just get the badge and continue on their merry way as usual.
Counterfeit software and goods is a way of life and culture in Hong Kong, China, and many places in Asia. You have "Woman's Street", which is an ENTIRE long street dedicated to fake goods. You even have police patrolling the area to keep it safe from pickpockets! But they are never shut down. Go there to find your "LV" bags, "Dior" rings, and "Rolex" watches.
In fact, now that they have made it safer to go to these places, MORE tourists are turning up. There are less seedy types and more goods now.
So I really think this is a pointless exercise. Now that China and HK are working together more, even MORE copy stuff is going to HK. And with HK's famous low crime rate and focus on making money and business, it is the IDEAL place to get these kind of things: total safe, cheap, available everywhere.
So, what are you working on ? (Score:3, Funny)
Scount B: I'm working on the wilderness survival badge.
Scout C: I'm working on the Intellectual Property badge.
Scouts A & B: Whoa! Cool!
Just a question (Score:5, Interesting)
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!
similar in the USA (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7813/ [linuxjournal.com]
The BSA needs to respond.
Could be a good thing... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Copying a shitty CD will get me fined a billion dollars and raped in prison? That law sucks! Where do I sign up to change it?"
Also, I don't know if scouts in other countries is much like scouts here in the UK, but we used to make our own music, perhaps they could encourage these kids to create stuff instead of stealing/copying-with-infringement (delete as applicable) the shit the corporate machine is spewing out.
Boy scouts scare me (Score:3, Insightful)
Boy scouts scare the shit out of me.
Small children required to stand at attention, swearing oats they don't understand. Small children learning obidience to elders, to an organisation out of their parents control. Ever read about that anywhere? (this was a core element in italic/german fascism for the knowledge-impaired)
Sure, the organisation is benign and all nice and stuff now, but will it stay that way?
Re:Boy scouts scare me (Score:3, Insightful)
On my honour,
I promise that I will do my best,
To do my Duty to God and the Queen,
To help other people at all times,
And to carry out the spirit of the Scout Law.
The Scout Law
A Scout is
Helpful and trustworthy,
Kind and cheerful,
Considerate and clean,
And wise in the use of all resources.
You're right, that's pretty scary. "Do my best"? I mean that's obviously training them to be corporate pawns. "Kind and Cheerful"? What sort of Commie trick is that?
The people running scouts ARE
Re:Boy scouts scare me (Score:3, Insightful)
Scouting is entirely within their parents control, because nobody can sign up without parental permission, and the vast majority of the people running things are parents.
You comment does apply to public school however, where parents truly lack control, and children are truly taught to love and obey the State.
For me, scouting was
Scout's Honor (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe it would be a good time to make a Knoppix CD for scouts? Help them get the computing merit badge and maybe a few others? I loved scouting until I dropped out because of a shitty group and gave up my hopes for an Eagle, but you could do worse than use free software to help more geeks get merit badges and get Eagle Scout free software evangelists. Actually it would seem to be natural to use free software if you are going to limit copying to that which can be done legally.
Re:Hiel MPA! (Score:2)
Will you make the fire by rubbing two sticks together?