In a move that almost demands a monocle and villainous pencil moustache, the Entertainment Software Association is targeting Kindergarten-age children. Possibly because everyone else already ignores them. They have developed an anti-piracy curriculum for ages up to fifth grade(complete with website).

“In the 15- to 24-year-old (range), reaching that demographic with morality-based messages is an impossible proposition” said ESA vice president of intellectual property enforcement, reported at CNET News. Because as everybody knows, all teenagers are inherently evil thieves and liars and certainly not people who’ve just found out that burning a DVD costs less than ten cents. Also wonderful is the unspoken implication that paying full cost to their parent organization is not only legal, it is moral.

No-one can reasonably deny the importance of paying artists for their work, though many online have a shot at it. The real question that anti-piracy organizations avoid asking is “How much should people pay?” The growth of pay-for-download sites like eMusic proves that it is possible to make money by online distribution, as long as you make it easier than stealing. And charge prices that don’t make people close their browser in disgust.

A few years ago the Malaysian government urged a drop in CD and DVD prices, as reported by The Register. They had found that only the expensive foreign titles were being pirated, while equally popular but cheaper home titles did not suffer the same problem. When a national government has to get involved to tell you you’re charging too much, and spell out the fact that cheaper things get stolen less, you may be going past “stubborn” and into “ridiculous”.

While it may be every corporations dream to raise a new generation of customers who will do what they’re told, this may be the first time one has actually tried it. When a group effectively says “those teenagers who think for themselves are too much trouble, let’s target children instead” it gets really hard to believe they’re in the right. Maybe while they’re hanging around the kindergarten they’ll catch a few episodes of Sesame Street about fair play. Even better, about sharing. And how kids are meant to keep away from strange men in business suits hanging around the playground.

Besides, there’s a real flaw in the ESA master plan to get ‘em while they’re young. Remember all those things you were told not to do as a child – how much attention did you pay to that in college?

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007 at 10:40 am under Piracy.

Read more entries by Luke McKinney.
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