“Youth don’t need more intimidation – what they need is solid, accurate information,” says the Electronic Frontier Foundation in its introduction to Teaching Copyright, a curriculum about students’ rights and responsibilities when using technology. “When we surveyed existing digital education resources related to copyright, we were dismayed to find that much of the available material relied on inaccurate generalizations about technology and law,” the EFF says. So it worked with educators around the US, it says, to design “a fun and flexible plan that would not just provide information, but also help foster basic skills in research, writing, and critical thinking.” The curriculum addresses these three questions: “What is legal online?”, “How is creativity being enabled by new technologies?” and “What digital rights and responsibilities exist already, and what roles do we play as users of digital technology?” The curriculum was released last week, as the Copyright Alliance – “backed by the recording, broadcast, and software industries” was promoting its “Think First, Copy Later” curriculum, the Music Industry News Network reports, editorializing that the latter curriculum “is just the latest example of copyright-focused educational materials portraying the use of new technology as a high-risk behavior.”
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