Don’t Copy That 2

The Education Division of the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) has a new web site aimed at helping educate K-12 students about the ethical and legal use of copyrighted materials, such as software, books, articles, music and movies. Called Don't Copy That 2  it includes a hip rap music video that addresses the dangers of engaging in piracy and the importance of respecting the creative output of others.  While mainly aimed at teachers, it can also be helpful for parents concerned about the issue. Support materials for the video, lesson plans for middle and high school teachers, a glossary, and other resources that can be helpful to parents and educators in confronting these complex and important concepts.

Paying for the News

As newspaper ad revenues continue to shrink, the newspaper business is facing a tough decision about whether to charge for online information. Setting up “paywalls” that make readers pay for the information they want is a daunting task from both a technological and business perspective. And newspapers that chose the pay route have to wonder if it will create a new revenue stream or drive readers to sites where there is no charge for the news.

What do you think will happen? Are you willing to pay for the news? Is this the end of local/regional news? What happens if news only begins to come from a couple of sources? Lots of questions and very few answers at this point.

Share Files with DropBox

Instead of attaching files to email and saving on USB drives, try sharing files with Dropbox. Dropbox for Windows, Mac, and Linux is a place where you can store your files online and across computers. If you use different computers at home and school, it’s a great way to have your files available in both locations and also available through your mobile digital devices. When you edit and save a file, it saves the edits on all your computers. In fact, you can even go back and look at the history of your edits. If you want to share your files with others, put the files in your Dropbox and share the link to the files. When you put your files in the Dropbox, the files are automatically backed up on the Dropbox servers. You get 2GB of storage free, but can opt to pay for additional storage up to 100GB.

Finding the Best Workout Music Online

When it comes to finding the best workout music online or already in your collection, it is all about BPM – beats per minute. Find out where to find that new music and how to analyze the BPM in music new and old by reading Kim Komando’s column - Find the perfect exercise music online in USA Today online.

Mom Still Has To Pay for the Songs

Among the reasons this blog got started was to report on what was happening in the action against individuals by RIAA– especially kids – who used peer-to-peer networks to share music illegally. Ironically, now comes a new ruling against a mom in Minnesota - at 10 times the penalty imposed in her first trial and roughly 1,000 times the amount she might have initially paid to settle out of court - all at a time when the RIAA is no longer pursuing the hardball tactics that netted her in the first place. Jammie Thomas-Rasset has been found liable for damages of almost $2 million for sharing 24 songs through the Kazaa P2P network.

Will this embolden the RIAA to go after more individuals? Probably not. Now their strategy is to work with several Internet service providers to warn violators and then restrict their service. Still not the kind of folks you or your kids want to tangle with!

Curious About Bing?

Curious about the new search engine that Microsoft is spending $100 million to hype? Rob Pegoraro of the Washington Post  has a good article comparing Google to Bing, in case you are thinking about checking Bing out or have had it for some reason with Google and Yahoo.. According to Pegoraro, Bing does have some features worthy of its advertising budget although it is something new to learn. It will be interesting to see if Micrsoft can retrain a population where “googling” has become a verb most of the population uses and doesn’t consider jargon. (You can read this article in the Washington Post  for free but you will have to join the site<.)

Bing Bada Boom?

Microsoft is about to announce a new search engine (June 3) and try again to take on Google and Yahoo. The new site, called Bing, is intended to make everyday Web searching a little less complicated. Bing also tries to make it easier for people to buy things, book travel and find credible health information. Microsoft says it will lead to faster, better organized and more relevant results. Reports say that the company will spend lavish amounts to publicize the new engine. So far Google has been unstoppable as the search engine of choice. It will be interesting to see where this leads. Will Bing boom?

What Are You Really Sharing on P2P Networks?

When you hear the term file sharing what do you think about? The teens at your house probably think about free movies and music, but there’s a pretty steep downside as well. Aside from the possibility of getting hauled to court for copyright violations, P2P users must constantly guard against sharing files they don't want shared. Often, kids will install P2P software on a family computer to get the latest movies and videos and not pay attention to the application's privacy settings. That can mean that the software runs all the time in the background and in the process makes everything on the family computer available to the rest of the network's users -- tax info, banking info, etc. Of course, kids aren't the only culprits. Parents have also been known to install the applications, ignorant of the consequences as well.

These networks can download porn, viruses, copyrighted material and a lot more so it is critical that users know how to set up the user controls. And don’t expect your antivirus software to take care of it. This is not a protection that a typical antivirus scanner will automatically set up.

Apple’s iTunes Store Drops Copy Protection

Apple who previously sold every single song on the iTunes site for 99 cents, most with copy-protection software, has come up with a new price structure and by the end of March will drop all copy protection on the music it sells. That will allow people to use music they purchase in homemade videos, for instance, or move songs easily to another music player. But you need to make it plain to your kids that that does not mean that they can use they music they buy in any way they want. Fair Use still is in effect and the music they buy can’t be used without permission as the background for a school performance, for example, without permission.

In April, all song prices will change to one of three tiers: 69 cents, 99 cents or $1.29. Back-catalog songs will be priced at 69 cents, with most new ones going up to $1.29. Hard to know what will cost 99 cents.

Apple made new deals with the media industry that is hungry for a new revenue stream since CD sales have taken such a beating. Apple has faced competition from Amazon, which began selling unrestricted music in 2007.

Music, Movies, Software—Digital Citizenship

It's a must that we integrate digital citizenship into school curricula today, but finding appropriate materials that fit into our classrooms is difficult. Microsoft has just launched its Digital Citizenship and Creative Content curriculum, which is free of charge. Targeted to students in Grades 8-10, the curriculum addresses real-world issues related to use of creative content in music, software, and movies. Included are lesson plans, reproducible materials, and classroom-based assessments. Students explore the meaning of intellectual property through the backdrop "Battle of the Bands". They dive into research as they learn about their own rights, rights of their peers, and rights of others who develop creative products. Using the site MYBYTES, students are able to publish original creative material and learn more about what professional writers and musicians have to say about this topic.