Piracy-Fighting Plan: Teach Copyright Law to Little Kids

The Motion Picture Association of America wants young people to know that piracy is a crime—and the group is hoping to get the message out early. It's teaming up with the Recording Industry Association of America and Internet service providers to push an anti-piracy program in elementary schools, the Los Angeles Times reports. The California School Library Association and iKeepSafe, a nonprofit aimed at kids' online safety, are also on board with the "Be a Creator" program, aimed at kids from kindergarten through sixth grade.

The draft curriculum, commissioned by the MPAA-backed Center for Copyright Information, features lessons like "Respect the Person: Give Credit" and "It's Great to Create," the Times notes. But some educators and experts aren't happy with the idea, and have two main complaints: One, that the curriculum is biased because it doesn't teach fair use. (A rep for iKeepSafe says the concept of fair use could be better understood by teens.) Second, "the idea that time would be taken out of kids' days to teach them copyright law, when they ought to be learning reading, writing, and arithmetic, I find to be strange," says a copyright lawyer. (More MPAA stories.)