A Lesson Plan to Teach 6th Graders to Stop Pirating, Love Copyright Law

The Center for Copyright Information (CCI), a pro-copyright group backed by Hollywood, the recording industry, and various large internet service providers, is currently drafting an elementary school curriculum to educate children on the merits of copyright and the terrors of piracy. “Be a Creator,” as the curriculum is known, could launch soon as a pilot program in California elementary schools.

This past September, Wired reviewed an early draft of the anti-piracy curriculum, and wrote that kindergartners through 6th graders would receive different lessons on copyright geared for their level of educational development. The instruction would be delivered through videos, class exercises, and other lesson plans designed to hammer home the idea that theft of ideas is wrong: a black-and-white issue, not a gray area of great complexity.

Instead of allowing children the freedom to create, “Be a Creator” would force students to think about their ideas in terms of ownership and permission to “internalize copyright in a personal way.” Never mind that the history of human progress and evolution is one of ideas building upon other ideas toward more interesting and innovative forms. There is also no mention of the concept of fair use in CCI’s 6th grade draft, but it does mention Creative Commons licenses, which is praiseworthy.

Ideally, copyright-based curricula should explain the debate in even-handed, objective fashion—the good, the bad, and the ugly. The 6th grade curriculum draft fails to meet this very reasonable public demand. As such, one could argue that the Center for Copyright Information’s anti-piracy curriculum runs the risk of indoctrinating youth with a borderline propaganda program.

Given that the entertainment industry is convinced piracy costs it billions of dollars in revenue (as opposed to, say, crap product or other factors), the curriculum is a rather obvious move for the MPAA-backed nonprofit. But, “Be a Creator” also comes at an interesting time with copyright trolls facing criticism for the uptick in IP lawsuits. The curriculum also flies in the face of mounting criticism that copyright can be an innovation killer; nor does it reckon with a study concluding that music pirates are ten times more likely to buy music than other internet users. None of this criticism is addressed in “Be a Creator."

It’s also worth noting that when copyright is examined in elementary schools at all, it is traditionally laid out in broadly historical and contemporary terms, like much of history. Typically, copyright is given a pre-eminent role at the heart of America’s dynamic economy and within its rich entrepreneurial history. Students are briefly assured that copyright ensures creativity, because it allows inventors to capitalize on their big ideas, before teachers quickly move on to the next subject in American history. “Be a Creator” could downplay the roles of sharing and free idea transmission, the collective effort that goes into producing our greatest innovations.

And, yet, it would be a mistake not to find a glimmer of light in this darkness. There is certainly some value in educating young students about America’s intellectual property system. To take the CCI's offensive volley as merely an aggressive brainwashing maneuver is to miss an opportunity to fix a critical eye on the pros and cons of America's copyright system. Students should study US copyright in all of its complexity, not in biased fashion.

If a pro-copyright agenda can be legislated, then why not attach an amendment that would require a counter-argument to achieve some balance? Ultimately, students would benefit from the spirited debate and learn critical thinking skills in the process. Everybody wins.