Taking the piss..
How low will the media companies stoop? You have groups like the MPAA, RIAA (if you’re American) and the IRMA (if you’re Irish) sueing end users because they download works that they own. In America, they brought in the much-hated DMCA which criminalizes activities such as bypassing copy protection on that new CD you purcashed, so you can copy the tracks to your PC. A similar act was passed in Europe, the EUCD, but its thankfully impotent in comparison, due to the difficulties of bringing it into law in different consituencies.
And with Captain Copyright they encourage activities that at best can be called tasteless:
Classroom Activities for Grades 3-6
Activity 5
Letter to the Editor
After reviewing examples of letters to the editor supporting copyright as a class, students will write a letter to the editor in support of copyright for the school paper or a classroom newsletter.
Activity 11
Giving Permission
Class discussion about why and how people may want to use copyrighted material will lead to the design of a permissions form for use of students’ materials.
And so on!
I find it personally offensive as it strives to create within children a mindset that their works must be controlled draconically, which is utterly contradictory to creativity. Oh for sure, its obstensibly to stop piracy, but in truth its aimed at controlling and maniplulating children from an early age.
For better or worse, my completely amateur interest in photography makes me an artist and so I’ve had to deal with copyright matters myself. I very much a leftie hippy and every single photo I put online is released under the Creative Commons” lisence, specifically the Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 one. In short, you’re free to do whatever you like with each of my photos, so long as you attribute the original to me and aren’t using the photo for commercial purposes (money-making, in short). And I will continue to do so for as long as I have a camera in my hands. A world where locking art and and creativity away for the sake of money is the norm isn’t one for me.