AfterDawn: News

New campaign urges parents to check their kids' downloads

Children's Online Charity, Childnet, has launched a campaign to try to urge parents to check if their kids are downloading and sharing music illegally on the Internet. The campaign is in place to help parents to protect from the dangers of filesharing. Thousands of parents around the world have ended up sued for their kid's downloading habits but Childnet has said that less than one tenth of parents understand how music is obtained from the Internet.

Leaflets will be distributed to many public including libraries and also will be available in record stores. Titled "Young People, Music and the Internet: A Guide for Parents about P2P, file-sharing and downloading", the leaflet will be available in 19 countries and eight different languages. "We believe most parents have no idea how file-sharing works," said Stephen Carrick-Davies, CEO of Childnet. "Parents need to get up to speed with what their children are doing online."



The UK music industry is delighted with the campaign. "We are committed to working with parents to make them aware of the dangers of illegal downloading," said Peter Jamieson, chairman of the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). "There has already been huge publicity about this issue, but we are committed to doing even more to get the message across. Across Europe, the numbers if music sharers is growing rapidly.

You also have to remember that in a lot of cases, parents would see downloading music from the Internet as a pretty harmless task and wouldn't understand the logic of record companies suing kids for sharing music. However, Childnet's campaign appears to be geared more towards protecting families from having to settle lawsuits for thousands than it is towards boosting record sales for the music companies.

Source:
BBC News

Written by: James Delahunty @ 9 Jun 2005 21:51

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• 14 comments

• Pop_Smith

  The funny thing is, only a few people make $$ of CDs. The artists make money via Contracts NOT CD sales. The CD labels are payed via Concerts and other stuff that is listed in the contracts signed by the artists.
  
  So, the R$AA needs to stop there worthless $hit.

  9.6.2005 22:04 #1

• etherz

  I will keep my current stance no matter what they say, I will ot pay for music untill it is suitably priced, and DRM free on the internet, and better quality, have yu heard the crap that comes out of iTunes, it's nothing like the quality of a CD!

  10.6.2005 01:38 #2

• mystic

  File haring is the Crack of the new centry and now they are out trying to reach the children .... so was michel jackson .... simularity makes you wonder if all the movies and not previously released music is on the net then where is it coming from ... the RIAA and the mpaa have relased the movies to show the courts that new stuff is being up loaded daily... but no one is either paying attention that its being put out there by them or for them . sorry but if they play it on reglaur tv then it should be free if it plays on the radio and I can tape it it should be free. other then that they may be right really if youy can go to the movies and cam it then its the movie theator fault and if the company who made the movie releases it (like the new star wars ) then its their own fault for not paying someone enought not to and they need to fix that internally .. would you put your home movies on the net for all to see and then complain if someone watched it ...?

  10.6.2005 04:40 #3

• richks

  So in the 21st century, there are parents leaving the internet to bring their kids up. In the 90s it was videogames and in the 80s it was TV.
  
  Parents ougth to know what their kids are up to, full stop. Doesn't matter what they're up to, online, at home or out beating up old men and filming it on their mobiles, parents should know what their kids are doing and take responsibility.

  10.6.2005 06:59 #4

• bernal11

  all those people who apprently got "SUED" is just a bunch of bs. i think its just a big scare to get us to stop downloading music. my mom never had a problem with me downloading music. i used to download a lot when napster came out at first. she used to tell me to make her cd's. righ tafter she heard in the NEWS that all that shit bout the lawsuits, she didnt want me to dl anymore music. the MEDIA is to blame for this

  10.6.2005 15:12 #5

• punx777

  any real artist would be happy that their music is being heard.

  10.6.2005 19:49 #6

• Bubba1982

  I'm sure this campaign will work.... NOT.

  10.6.2005 19:53 #7

• tatsh

  punx777: Entirely with you on that one.

  10.6.2005 21:19 #8

• Teitenair

  If we download music though :( that means artists won't be able to afford their 4 million dollar gold plated jets. Why can't they have that for talking in a microphone..........why god why!!!!!!! It seems fair.

  11.6.2005 10:48 #9

• solargame

  i hate buying cd's becuase i believe cd are a 100% rip-off becuase it only costs about 20 cents to make the cd and 10 seconds to burn it. why should i need to pay 10-15 dollars. thats why i use itunes or that type of shit.(still a rip off, but what else can i do)

  11.6.2005 15:38 #10

• max777

  I hope the campaign explains the difference between downloading and uploading (sharing). I know a lot of the P2P enables sharing of partially downloaded files, but some don't. Is it illegal to just download?

  12.6.2005 11:58 #11

• BigPantz

  Music & Video piracy was here before the internet, & will be here long after the governments of the world have shut the internet down ('cos that is what will happen, 1 day)..
  
  (People over 30), can you remember watching pirate copies of ET or Star Wars when you were a kid that your dad got from work? its no different now..
  
  (people over 20), can you remember listening to Michael Jacksons' Thriller album that your mates' mates' mate had brought on vinyl & copied to tape, for all his mates? its no different now..
  
  its all b*ll*cks. they will never win.. if my kids wanna listen to an album or watch a film thats pirated they are welcome too.. ill still take them to the cinema & buy them CD's from HMV... ITS NO DIFFERENT NOW...

  12.6.2005 16:28 #12

• Alaphic

  one thing that pisses me off is the assumption of the RIAA and MPAA that people who pirate things are automatically going to stop buying music or going to the movies. i still go to the movies at least once a week, and if a cd is good enough, i'll buy it. as long as artists are going to keep pumping out crap cds with only one or two good tracks and still expect us to buy them, i'm going to download those one or two songs that are worth listening to

  14.6.2005 23:50 #13

• max777

  Why do the media companies get mad at us when they expect us to keep BUYING the same media over and over on different formats. The fact is we are only renting it. Own it on LP, 8track, tape, VHS, DVD, CD, again with subscription services like cable, sat, pay per view, paid download services like iTunes & Napster that even restrict what file format we can use, so then I guess they expect us to buy separate MPEG and DivX formats of the same media. Maybe people will start opening their eyes when they realize they need to buy all their movies a 4th or 5th time on HD-DVD.
  
  Well, good news is we can make a copy and give it to our friends -- laws/courts generally accept that as legal. Yet, the media companies make this hard with copy protection technology.
  
  So the best way to get your media is thru filesharing. That's right! You can download one crappy copy off the net, and chances are that it's the song you wanted, not a virus, and chances are it won't cost you $150,000 in fines, your house, and your car.
  
  In the end, it's the consumer that gets the shaft no matter how you pay for it.
  
  Hope THAT makes it in the brochure.

  15.6.2005 00:17 #14