Microsoft plants mind-worm in schoolkids’ heads
p2pnet news view Advertising | Kids & Kartels:- You know how impressionable kids can be, so it’s simple.
Get ‘em while they’re young. That’s corporate goal Number One with penetration of school classrooms around the world now a matter of routine.
Unscrupulous marketeers know the value of corrupting children at the earliest possible opportunity, getting into their heads with flashy ads and mind-worm soundtracks, as Microsoft demonstrated in a school in Pennsylvania.
It “forced a bunch of middle schoolers in Pennsylvania to learn, and perform,” Jonathan Mann’s Bing song, says TechCrunch.
‘Bing’ is Microsoft’s answer to advertising giant Google’s search engine.
“The horror,” said the story, going on, “It’s hard to watch this without immediately thinking about parents who accept money to allow their child to be sponsored. Is this the future of branding?
“Mann actually sent us the video along with the following note: ‘I literally cried a little bit when I saw this video. On the one hand I’m happy I was able to provide some kids with an excuse not to do school work for a few hours. On the other hand, not sure how I feel about these kids being indoctrinated into the cult of, well, whatever. It’s kinda creepy … ‘ ”
It’s more than creepy. It’s criminal. But what else is new?
Intellectual Property merit badges
All segments of the entertainment industry have been getting away with this kind of thing for years with corporate indoctrination specialists masquerading as ‘educators’ even using movements such as the Scouts to carry their specious messages.
“Funny thing,” said Rafael Venegas three years ago in a comment post to a p2pnet.net story highlighting the fact Hollywood had weasled its way into the Hong Kong Boy Scout movement.
“You put two USA lawyers in opposing sides of any infringement lawsuit and they can’t agree on how to interpret the law and its frequently contradictory jurisprudence,” said Rafael. “They can’t even agree on what infringement is. And someone expects some kids in China to have knowledge of IP law’?”
No only China. Soon afterwards, the MPAA proudly announced Los Angeles Scouts would be expected to ‘earn’ Intellectual Property merit badges.
And the corporate record industry came under fire, “after launching a scheme to teach primary schoolchildren — possibly as young as five — not to illegally download music from the internet,” said Britain’s the Daily Mail, recently
“Lessons teaching pupils about copyright law are already being piloted in six schools and could be rolled out across the country,” but,”Critics suggest the initiative is designed to protect commercial interests rather than provide a valuable educational experience.”
The get ‘em while they’re young child mind-rape scheme was organised by music industry ‘consultant’ Ruth Katz — who also works for EMI, said p2pnet. But no worries because she’s, “funding the school scheme independently,” although by another amazing coincidence, she’s backed by music industry organisations, “including the EMI Music Sound Foundation — a charity set up by the label to improve music education,” says the story.
This particular travesty is happening in Britain, but it’s no more than part of an overall entertainment industry campaign to warp the minds of children everywhere by introducing copyright and intellectual property law into classrooms.
Much more recently, Hollywood sent “one of its biggest guns” to New Zealand in a “last-ditch attempt to persuade the Government to beef up its proposed approach to tackling internet piracy,” said stuff.co.nz.
“The corporate movie and music industries are spending millions of dollars in an international campaign to browbeat governments into instituting three strikes laws which would threaten alleged file sharers with two warnings, and then have them thrown off the Internet,” said p2pnet adding:
“With the governments acting as corporate copyright cop agencies, ISPs would be the enforcers.
However, as with Britain, the US, Australia and other countries where Big Music and Hollywood are struggling desperately to have their business plans adopted as local laws, the cartels are meeting with fierce on- and offline resistance from civil rights groups and citizens.
“ ‘Washington-based executive vice-president and chief policy officer Greg Frazier held discussions with officials in an attempt to persuade the Government to rethink its plan to water down section 92a of the Copyright Act, which was put on hold in March following a storm of protests from internet advocates’,” said stuff.co.nz.
Not only but also, he, “launched a ‘comic book’ driving home the association’s anti-piracy message, which will be distributed to 17,000 children at cinemas throughout New Zealand during the school holidays”.
As I’ve said many times before, Thank God we home-school our daughter.
Jon Newton - p2pnet
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
p2pnet.net – MPAA Boy Scout spies, July 18, 2006
TechCrunch – Microsoft Tortures Little Kids With Bing Jingle, October 30, 2009
p2pnet – Get ‘em while they’re young!, October 5, 2009
Daily Mail – Anger at record industry bosses over school anti-piracy lessons for children as young as five, October 3, 2009
stuff.co.nz – Copyright crusader flies in, October 5, 2006
p2pnet – Hollywood goes after New Zealand kids, October 13, 2006
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October 31st, 2009 at 11:36 am
Wow, that’s really HURTIN’ on so many levels!
October 31st, 2009 at 4:08 pm
The music recording and movies corporations are not the only one who should be razed to the ground.
Advertising to kids is CRIMINAL and should be illegal.
Some corporations really, really, need to be destroyed before they destroy our societies.
November 1st, 2009 at 11:37 am
Is Microsoft evil for corrupting our children? No, they are just trying to play catch up to Apple. Remember when Apple put the Apple computer in a lot of School rooms? How about getting golf added to the PE sports in High Schools? Was this an expansion of Business 101? As to making advertising to Kids Criminal, watch Saturday Morning TV. Should we be allowed to coy music? Yes. The world changes and so should the corporations that try to stand against the incoming tide by throwing money and corrupt politicians at it. If we are lucky they will drown in thier own greed, but I don’t think anything will change until we remove the fuel. We must cut off the cashflow to these peole. Have a one week boycott on any purchases that put money in thier coffers. That would be a 1/52 drop in thier bottom line. What would the share holders do? especially in these economic times? Also, get the names of the politicians backing them and start a blackbery campaign to make sure they are not re_elected. That will put some fear in the good ol’ boys who think themselves untouchable. Lets use the Internet itself to kee it free. Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, all the rest. Fire them up and realize the ower of being part of Change….Internet Uber Alles!!!!!!
November 1st, 2009 at 11:39 am
Sorry about spelling erors. My P key just turned turtle.
November 1st, 2009 at 11:54 am
We are speaking of Liberty and Freedom. The original Internet was started to allow a free World Wide xchange of Ideas. Look at the Obama Campaign. How about the power of youTube? Could we put up some viral video of these creeps doing thier thing? The power is unlimited. We have the power to change things. Information and economics are the answer. To win a war you must have near unlimited resources, or at least a lot more than your opponent.
Should we be allowed to copy music and video? Yes. The world changes and so should the corporations that try to stand against the incoming tide by throwing money and corrupt politicians at it. If we are lucky they will drown in thier own greed, but I don’t think anything will change until we remove the fuel. We must cut off the cashflow to these people.
I know, Have a one week boycott on any purchases that put money in thier coffers. That would be a 1/52 drop in thier bottom line. What would the share holders do? Especially in these economic times? Also, get the names of the politicians backing them and start a blackberry campaign to make sure they are not re-elected. That will put some fear in the good ol’ boys who think themselves untouchable. Lets use the Internet itself to keep it free. Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, all the rest. Fire them up and realize the power of being part of Change….Internet Uber Alles!!!!!!