Friday, July 14, 2006

The Pig and the Box - a drm story for kids


Now this is a great idea. MCM, a writer and producer and programmer and sometimes artist from Victoria, BC, Canada, has written a kids book about digital rights management, in response to the entertainment industry's efforts to educate kids about copyright. The book is called The Pig and the Box (1.6M pdf) and is available under a creative commons licence. MCM says:

"The Pig and the Box is about a pig who finds a magic box that can replicate anything you put into it. The pig becomes so protective of it, and so suspicious of anyone that wants to use it, that he makes people take their copied items home in special buckets that act as... well, they're basically DRM. It's like a fable, except the moral of the story is very modern in tone.

I made the book after hearing how the entertainment industry in Canada is keen on teaching young kids about how to "respect" copyright. That was a bit heavy-handed, I thought, and otherwise despicable. Preying on small kids, brainwashing them so they believe what you're doing is honourable and good... Feh. So I wrote this book partly as a response to that venture, to counter-act the confused ideals that young'ns are being exposed to these days. Also, I wanted to write potty humour."

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