Nonprofit Group Sends Filesharing Propaganda To Students
There have been yet more attempts at brainwashing and fear-mongering would-be pirates under the guise of education. It seems to me, they would spend alot less time and money evolving to meet the demands of the new millennium, rather than fighting, harassing, and hurting the very people they are trying to sell to.
The National Center for State Courts, a nonprofit organization, has sent file-sharing propaganda to thousands of students. The supposedly ‘educational’ materials, presented in the form of a comic strip, are intended to frighten students with gross exaggerations of the legal consequences of sharing music online (lose your scholarship to college, go to jail for two years, and more). From the article: ‘”The Case of Internet Piracy,” however, reads like the Recording Industry Association of America’s public relations playbook: Download some songs, go to jail and lose your scholarship. Along the way, musicians will file onto the bread lines. “The purpose is basically to educate kids — middle school and high school-aged about how the justice system operates and about what really goes on in the courtroom as opposed to what you see on television,” said Lorri Montgomery, the center’s communications director.’ I’m not encouraging anyone to break any laws, but this is ridiculous. What’s truly discouraging is the fact that several judges appear to be in full support of this sort of ‘education.’
The propaganda material is available in PDF form, and it lists the judges and others involved in its creation. Wired’s post has a summary of the story (which is good, since the story is awful), and Techdirt notes a couple of the legal inaccuracies.
scary
Talk about using fear and propaganda as a last resort because the Entertainment Business is freaking out and putting pressure on the government.
We ought to hang ‘them’ in the gallows.
I hope our high school counterparts can make this laughable when\if it hits their schools.
Straight away you see a damning error in the first lot of panels. When the old woman gets a note saying that a library will be built on her premises. Since when does any country build new libraries these days.
disgruntled book reader
OMG! i will never DL anything again that pamphlet has changed my ways… I hate community service LOL! Also How can you not believe what a internet cartoon tells you.
To be fair, I think it’s a noble proposition to educate the populace about the judicial system of the country through easy-to-read comics. The fear mongering on the other hand is something we can do without
Their first mistake…making a comic strip longer than a page.
After two pages I couldn’t take it.
No high school student is gonna be able to concentrate long enough to finish this…no high school student that downloads stuff of course
@7
100% true… who the hell is gonna read 24 pages of stupid comics. unbelievable how stupid such organizations are.. just wasting their and sponsor’s time. students actually are the hardest audience to tell propaganda to. so you’ll have to try a lot harder than that to convince us that we’re gonna lose something. Morons..:)
I wonder what happens if I download the pdf file of it
I got through about half of it. Horrible! “Oh GOD Grandma! My piracy cost you your house!” STFU GTFO
Pretty sweet download music and if you get caught you get to go on TV! Isn’t this the American dream?
If you download illegal files, you will be sent to iraq!
People, have you actually SEEN these comics? I did, and I laughed my ass off! Must like those old ‘educational’ videos of yore, they are more ridiculous than they are scary of educational.
If this is all they got, we’ll be downloading into forever!
Tanks to this comic, I’ve learned that the CYBER-POLICE is never too busy not to catch us dirty illegal filesharers. I am scared now.
Logan… I’d agree with you, if they deserved ‘fair’ treatment.
A) Well, if 2006 is anything to go by, they have more money than they know what to do with. I would’ve hoped that a nonprofit with $38,000,000 to spend each year would be focusing on more important issues… ‘National Center for State Courts’… how about focusing on how the courts’ powers are being usurped by the current administration and the country is turning totalitarian.
B) Nonprofit my ass. No responsible nonprofit pays 5 officers a total of approximately $750,000. No responsible nonprofit has 83 people on its payroll earning more than $50,000. Nonprofit - anyone heard of volunteering? They should be investigated by the Attorney General… if Virginia has one! (based in Williamsburg, Virginia)
In case anyone is interested in reading their 2006 tax return (which by federal law is free for public review), or calling their Director of Development, check out Guidestar, a free nonprofit resource that holds nonprofits to account. (Yes, you can look up Michael Moore’s foundation or even Bill Gates’ foundation is you’re interested!).
‘Nonprofit’. They should be ashamed.
is this available on dvd ?
..btw nice story
i like
I like the bit where the old ladys house is re-evaluated from $86K to $120K and due to the “massive” increase in costs the redevelopment gets cancelled. Total nonsense !
Is there XXX MANGA version of this nice comic book, pls.
Go! Go! USA!
Omg, what a bunch of crap!
who even buys cd’s nowadays?
they are obsolete.
you offer me a way to dl songs from an album i like, at my max dl speed from ur site, and charge me 5 cents per song.
that is the only way ur getting money from me.
BTW: i live in canada, none of this is illegal for me
This had to be one of the funnest things I ever read.
I learned if you download music:
1) The local cops put you in jail for a few years.
2) You can be made to work for the RIAA against your will for free (Isn’t that called slavery?).
3) Your local city wants to steal your house.
are people really that stupid…..?
the cartoon is funny! HAHAAAA
I feel sad for them if they really think a cartoon will make people think twice about DL’ing..
I think that cartoon was originally about teen pregnancy and they just changed the text…
I bought a Muse CD yesterday it was really cheap: only 100 dollars plus tax.
And to top it all off they put it in the most annoying format, PDF
Nothing will keep me from using me ‘nets
Everybody’s attention is on torrents and stuff, besides it’s not exactly as easy to track…
I’ve been downloading stuff for about 4 years know from different sources. Not one single love letter from either the MPAA or the RIAA…
@15 …it is not rare for a non-profit to fund staff in this way.
Haha, reminds me of “Don’t copy that floppy”, cept a lot less funny.
“but luckily I was caught, i say luckily because i dont want to be someone that harms the music industry”
What Chump is gonna read this cheese and take it to hart??
!!Note i only read begging middle and end!!
That won’t keep anyone from downloading music. In fact, it will probably encourage them. The girl ends up getting no jail time, and no fine, what’s not to like?
There is only one way to describe this, Pathetic.
It says its point is to teach kids it’s not like TV, but it seemed just like on TV to me. Has there been a “Law & Order” file sharing episode yet?
And how ’bout that evil town! building a library of all things! My town is actually building a new library! Yea, Us! Knock down Granny’s abode!
It’s to the point where I would welcome everyone who fileshares to be brought to court. The entire “system” would ground to a halt. The numbers are astronomical and they know there is no way to pursue everyone, thus the scare tactics primarily. Otherwise they must choose “certain” people and then explain why they were the ones chosen over others.
I was really hoping she was gonna turn out to be spiderwoman…boring comic.
my version of it would be:
Box1 as it is.
box2.
#1 as it is.
#2 I’ll lose my share rates. i know i will.
box3. The pinoy kids are calling me a lousy share becouse my ISP is sniffing my traffic.
box4. dont worry dear. theres allways the “encrypt” option in the uTorrent, it will work out.
for safe downloading use newsservers or file hosting sites like rapidshare n things…..avoid p2p like torrenting , lime wire n things……..safe downloading to all…
Oh my god, wwhat a bunch of crap.I mean, seriously, “I’m glad I got caught, because I don’t want to hurt the music industry”. Riiiiight, the poor starving, multimillionaire musicians. What a crock
Actually, the comic is quite funny! i had a hell of a laugh^^
@ RIAA: thanks mates! who would believe that you guys had a sense of humor, too
LOL
Well, with the nonprofits I work with, it is… but apparently they have more… ethics… than the norm it would seem. I love the Red Cross, but I’m not sure their VP of Sales & Marketing should be paid $440,000 a year either.
Clearly I’ll have to stick to the mantra ‘charity begins at home’ unless I want a chunk of my donations to be skimmed off the top.:|
Pah, PDF indeed, sent it to the masses!! think I’ll wait for this to get nuked due to legal innacuracies
then the REPACK, and inevitably the PROPER 
Fear is a major economical engine
Get a cell phone feel secure $$
Put your money in banks $$$
airbags $$$$
basically the more you’re afraid the more you’ll spend
What a ”wounderfull” world we live in…
Quin, unfortunately those are very racist comments you plonker. The Aussie accent is faaarr faarrr more annoying then our British accent and you’re comedies are crap.. Oh apart from flight of the conchords… OH NO.. That from New Zealand isn’t it!! Eeerrm, well I suppose home and away and neighbors are quite ,ahahaha!! Remember, people from all over the world read this site, so think before you type!! You don’t want to end up like Mr.X!!
This is a great new comedy by the way guys.. I’ve been ranting about it for ages!! 9.30 Tuesdays BBC3
What u need is an comic artist around the area this propaganda is being released and get him to re-design the comic to show the real truth. Then get it released via the technology the music industry is scared of (aka the internet) and I bet it will go further and faster than the crap they have just released then the real education will begin.
Sure… the RIAA cares about the small bands. Not the big ones that make piles of money. They sue people and spend millions just to save the small bands. Of course… they are good people after all, we’ve all seen that !
lol.
Jack Chick hired by the RIAA, scary….
pdf? wtf? all the comics I have downloaded in the last two years have been in cbr format. Don’t these clowns know anything about piracy.
No really, I think we all should support small bands, screw the big ones, pay for the small independent movies, try to give them a wider release so the makers can make more, and screw Hollywood over who releases blockbuster crap that’s like eating a frozen pizza, it’s delicious when you eat it, but then you just feel empty inside…:(
-Comic-Man-
I have nothing to say on the comic, I felt the dialogue was a bit, “stiff” and I think the drawings were good. The story could have been more developed (file-sharing of movies, not only music) and I think the character of the grandmother was a bit weak. Overall, 7/10.
that girl is hot! =D
The girl in the comic seems to act more like she had been gangraped by the lacrosse team rather than downloaded few songs..
Reminds me of the 50s capitalist/communist propoganda crap.
Oh how cute! This will surely make me stop downloading all my stuff of the web…
Not.
Reminds me of Tom Pettys’ The Last DJ, “as we celebrate mediocrity our boys upstairs want to see, how much you’ll pay for what you used to get for free”
This is such BS propaganda. First of all they keep pointing out how it’s hurting “the industry” and small bands. Most small bands put their music on file sharing hoping to get recognized. I have some hip hop heads from boston that asked me to host their albums. They want their names out. It’s big already rich fat cat bands going after everyone. And all this comic shows is as long as it’s your fist time the penalty is not that stiff. Frig this
Damn!, That comic was effective. Now I want to download more songs FREE.
BAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH …. AAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHA
Firstly nobody uses ‘websites’ to download their MP3’s and if they do they are morons. Secondly, encryption is a wonderful thing. I don’t even download music! I DO however download movies, games, and software. IS THAT ILLEGAL? HAHAhahahhahah
Sooo…let me get this straight. According to this comic, you’ll get the same punishment for downloading songs as you would for impersonating a POLICE OFFICER?!? Believe it or not, that girl got a sentence almost identical to someone that I use to know who actually admitted to using an unmarked cop car in a non-civilian manner. I don’t know about you guys, but suddenly, imitating a cop is starting to sound like a better alternative to downloading music. At least with the cop thing, you can actually bust the people who are actually screwing up!