Scouting with the MPAA
p2pnet news view | Kids & Kartels:- “They have to attend a series of seminars that talk about Intellectual Property,” Dan, the editor of scoutingnews.org comments under yesterday’s story that the major movie studio cartel has conned the Hong Kong government and Hong Kong Scout Association into issuing copyright badges.
“Its a proficiency badge and can’t be worn on their uniform,” he says, going on:
“Its amazing at the horrible reporting that has been done about this story. All the U.S. media is doing is confusing people.”
Horrible reporting? Confusing people?
The entertainment cartels are relentlessly indoctrinating society under the pretext of ‘education’.
They’ve penetrated universities, turning them into PR and marketing outlets with staff acting as unpaid help. They routinely suborn tax-payer financed international police forces to supplement their own pseudo-cop ‘investigations’.
Most parents and teachers apparently have no problem with the terrible reality that the venal and thoroughly corrupt movie studios and record labels are poisoning the minds of young children through spurious ‘educational’ programs which have nothing to do with education.
And now they’re warping the scouting movement.
Copyright law has absolutely no place anywhere outside the courts, appropriate schools, legal offices and corporate board rooms.
It certainly has no place in a school room, in a scout camp or anywhere else where children are being taught how to become good people.
The award “has no relation to the Boy Scouts of America or its Merit Badge program,” writes Dan on his web site.
He goes on, “Numerous sites that picked up the story are trying to sound informed while making horrible connections to various Scouting programs. A little bit of research would go a long way. A post on a political blog at news.com links to the U.S. Scouting Service Project’s list of merit badges. It appears they missed the fact their story came from Hong Kong and not the U.S.”
Hong Kong is merely the very thin end of a huge wedge. With that in hand, the cartels will soon get around to the US scouting movement and, count on it, the guiding movement for girls —- and then all the other organizations for kids everywhere.
If you think Hong Kong is all the studios and labels have in mind, Dan, you’re living in a fool’s paradise.
The picture at the top is from the officicial Boy Scouts of America site listing the Top Ten reasons why parents like scouting. Is intellectural property law to be added to the list?
“I’ve been in BSA leadership for 10 years,” comments Noah Vail. “If I ever see this cancer try to infiltrate our orginization, my scouts will know the truth of corruption.”
The BSA is making, “carefully wise choices these days,” he says. “I don’t see this as a problem to worry about right now.”
Please, Mr Vail. Worry now.
If you don’t, it’ll all be over before you can say ‘Dib Dib Dib’.
Stay tuned.
Jon Newton
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
See:-
yesterday’s story – Copyright law for Boy Scouts, p2pnet, May 3, 2005
May 4th, 2005 at 10:18 am
You can tell “Dan” that he can read my story.
I’m the Hong Kong reporter who got the following quote for this story:
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/stdn/std/Metro/GE04Ak06.html
“It is really what they call a proficiency badge – the badge cannot be put on the shirt,” said a IPD spokeswoman.
May 4th, 2005 at 12:28 pm
“the badge cannot be put on the shirt”
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in other words, it’s not even a badge that’s worthy of being displayed on a uniform.
i can understand that. being a rat is one thing. proclaiming it to the world is another. are scouts now supposed to notify authorities if they even suspect someone of filesharing/copying so-called copyright-protected materials?
is the badge sponsored by MPAA and RIAA? do the RIAA MPAA set down ground rules and an instruction booklet on how to earn the rat badge?
is there a picture of it somewhere? i’d like to get a look at it if possible.
May 5th, 2005 at 8:28 pm
I think this type of coverage is quite unfortuneate as this is not what scouting needs right now : to be seen as licking up to the MPAA and indoctrinating children.
However heres the good news : Being a member of a European Scout association and having traveled to numerous international events all over the world, i have seen organisations such as the MPAA try and run seminars and workshops on IP.
Guess what?
We arent listening.
We’re average young people from all over the globe. Scouts in the developed nations are just like their peers – they have huge mp3 collections all downloaded from p2p and doubtless many have various pirated pieces of software. In developing nations, i somehow doubt that scouts with web acess are running genuine copies of windows, or in developed nations for that matter!
These stands are pretty much empty and having talked to some friends of mine from Hong Kong i have a feeling that this isnt going to be one of the more popular elements in their badge scheme.