pirate version of my book

[Jeff Reynolds]

Tim,

sorry to hear this about your son. I went back and taught at my old high school in the early 2000s when mp3 were hitting the fan and copying on the computer was getting rampant and just the thing kids growing up with as normal. I was teaching multimedia and since i was also producing it myself i really tried to talk the kids through the issue in a number of ways and i set rules what could be done int he lab inside educational guidelines on copyright and personal stuff. At first the kids thought i was just a dumb adult, but an interesting thing happened over the course of the year. when i took the job my aim was to integrate the multimedia into a lot of their standard assignments so they would be getting a twofer of doing standard assignments in more fun and different ways and learning good computer and design skills while doing their regular work. worked swimmingly and the kids were all producing their own content on a pretty continuous basis. I slowly saw them change their tune on copying/pirating. Once they got a sense of doing their own work they mellowed a lot about it and actually started to see the other side of the coin. it didnt stop all of it, but it was very heartening to see them listen when we would discuss it and not dismiss me as a dumb old adult. some came totally around and it was great to see in general a really good set of ethics being formed. most of the rest at least seemed to walk away with an internal battle going on about this. not totally set up yet ethically, but at least the seed was planted and they could not just ignore their own experience in the computation.

i think that sense of creation of something is not felt by many out there in society. without it the notion that you should be able to get something for doing that just is to intangible for them to build a good ethical structure around. While few of the students were true talents in creating stuff, all of them really enjoyed the process when given the chance, the tools, encouragement, and some instruction and produced much better product and had a much better understanding of the lessons than they did doing the standard writing papers and such. but the real thing i realized they got out of the process was that aha moment of seeing their own creation come to life. thats powerful and missing a lot in our culture and really helpful in being able to see the other side of the coin in these ethical issues. walking in the other guys shoes is really one of the basic parts of the ethical process.

cheers

jeff

On Sep 3, 2012, at 1:00 PM, use-livecode-request at lists.runrev.com wrote:

> When people find hundred dollar bills lying around outdoors, with no apparent explanation, how many will turn the money over to authorities, pending identification of the rightful owner? For that matter, how many of us would do that?
> 
> My 24 year old son has a normal conscience -- he is not mean or selfish in other ways. He does not hesitate to download pirated music, he's got many gigs of it, and he's figured out some way to download a pirated version of almost any book he wants, to read on his Kindle. He would not hesitate to use pirated software, though he doesn't know how. His conscience is entirely silent on these topics. He thinks I'm weird because I prefer to pay for the music I listen to.
> 
> By comparison, I once tried to publish a commercial application and I'm the author of a copyrighted book for which I received well-earned royalties.
> 
> My son's behavior gives me pain. Yet he seems unable to conceive of the possibility that his actions are immoral or harmful. He seems to think I am an old-fashioned fuss-budget about copyrights. He is dismissive about the possibility that authors might stop writing or musicians might stop recording. Everyone he knows has the same point of view, except me and his Mom.