Canadian copyright agency launches kids' propaganda campaign

Michael Geist sez, "Access Copyright has launched a new site that borders on parody, but is apparently serious. Captain Copyright, is a new "superhero" that educates children about the virtues of copyright, rushing to the scene in the event that someone publishes research without proper credit. While my first reaction to the site was that it is just silly, as I dug deeper, I now find it shameful. These materials, targeting kids as young as six years old, mispresents many issues and proposes classroom activities that are offensive.

"Activity Two seeks to build respect for the copyright symbol by asking the grade one students to role play by seeking copyright permission and to sell their copyright work. Activity Three asks the students to picture a world without copyright and to discuss whether their favourite book or song would still be created. Activity Six celebrates creativity by having the class create a group book with an additional page for the copyright notice. Activity Seven envisions grade one students creating their own copyright permission form."

Have each student work alone or divide the class into small groups. Have each person or group prepare a page for the class book. When all the pages are done, compile them to create the book. Add an extra page as a copyright page. Encourage students to tell you what information should be on the page. Affix a Captain Copyright sticker, and include the classroom name and the date of publication. Read the book as a class.

Provide model-making materials and encourage those students who are interested to build a model of Captain Copyright.

Link (Thanks, Michael!)

Update: A reader writes, "I found this in their Intellectual Property Disclaimer notice (at the bottom of each page) under the title 'Links from Other Websites', where they reserve the right to prevent people linking to their site who are critical of them. So much for free speech!

...pages with the following exception: permission to link is explicitly withheld from any website the contents of which may, in the opinion of the Access Copyright, be damaging or cause harm to the reputation of, Access Copyright.

Update 2: Stefan found this gem from the terms: "iv. You are not permitted to copy or cut from any page or its HTML source code to the Windows [TM] clipboard (or equivalent on other platforms) onto any other website."