Education, Not SOPA, Best Weapon Against Web Piracy

One innocent bystander of proposed anti-piracy legislation might be libraries, students, and educators. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, many trailblazing open source education initiatives I’ve written about on Forbes might be silenced if the “broad” and “vague” enforcement provisions of the proposed SOPA (Stop Online Piracy act) and/or PIPA (Protect IP Act) were to become law.  These sites include MIT’s OpenCourseWare, Universia, Curriki, CK12, Connexions, Creative Commons, P2PU and even the forthcoming MITx. So pressing are these concerns that a group of prominent educators submitted a letter to House Chairman Lamar Smith and Ranking Member John Conyers, explaining why SOPA would “chill the creation of educational content.” The Library Copyright Alliance and United States Student Association followed suit.

What’s the answer? I humbly suggest a frequently dismissed, nonviolent, and unintrusive tool that worked wonders in curbing teenage smoking and the spread of AIDS: public education.

The first component of public education against piracy is awareness.  It may surprise you, but many users claim to be unaware that the means by which they download pirated entertainment are illegal. According to a 2010 Business Software Alliance (BSA) study, seven in 10 users say they support paying for virtual property, and eight in 10 say they value legal over pirated software. “The conclusion that the younger generation in particular draws is, ‘if it’s so easy, it can’t be wrong.’ And that’s really what we have to bring to an end,” says Universal’s Cotton. In other words, for those who are oblivious to the law, explicit warnings, especially at time of download, could deter illegality...