Another lateral rant. Indirectly linked to my idea of responsibility.

The following is something I noticed yesterday in class. We were learning about the legal implications of teaching. Things that seemed small but specific, some seemingly odd but with a potential reason. Anyway, here are three of the legal implications that we were told. Which do you think received the most surprise/annoyance by student teachers?

(a) Being told we couldn't write student's full names on their art work
(b) Being told we couldn't show let any other student know the results of other students, or putting stars on the wall to show achievement of some.
(c) Being told we're not allowed to show videos in class or video more than 3% or 3 pages of a book.
(d) Being told, if we wanted to keep anyone in after 3pm we needed to give parents 1-2 days notice.

Chosen yet?


Well, even though all of the above seem to be rather odd, it was (c) that caused the most murmur and discussion. I don't know what made people particularly annoyed in particular but this is one rule that I am in favour of, or at least believed it was an obvious rule.

Even though we have all been raised in a capitalist society, I don't think people really understand the implications of being in it. People produce things for us to buy because of a desire to make money. The society as a whole will produce most of the multifarious things we want and need because they want to earn money. Movies, videos and books are all produced (and priced) with consideration for how many will be sold and how much profit will be produced.

The outrage of not being able to use videos seems to be the same desire that makes people buy illegally copied music, internet distributed music and CDs. People see this as a right, and actual prices are a "rip-off". The way companies fund the wonderful people who create music, write books and make movies is by selling it and licensing it out.

Maybe somewhere there lies a "honesty quotient" for a market. That is a number that reflects the degree of honest purchases and the the leakage through illegal actions and selling. The leakage quotient would be used in pricing legal copies. The ironic nature of the system is that the "rip-off" price is high because of the illegal leakage of profit that would otherwise go to the creators of the goods. People who take illegal copies are harming those that don't.

In the end it is more or less a "prisoner's dillema". If everyone bought and acted legally, prices would be lower. If some people cheat, the legal price needs to be higher harming those who are honest. If everyone cheated, then there would be a collapse and there would be no goods for anyone to use as the creator would not be making a profit.

Maybe we have an implicit understanding in society that there are understanding, obedient, moral people in society who will always buy legally so that means that we can allow illegal copies or illegal use of rented goods. That since there is someone who is doing the buying, then it is OK to buy illegal copies. Not many people would know any friends or acquaintances who have been fined hugely or put in prison for buying an illegal movie. The consequences as fierce as they might be, are not "real" in anyone's eyes.

Back to showing videos in school, movie companies specifically license out videos for personal use and outline the places that such can be shown. All of these things are built into the price structure of videos, books and DVDs. Even in our particular context, we are receiving money for educating and we are exploiting the creative works of someone else to do it without recompensating them. When we copy books for whatever reason, we are using what

The next time you complain about the cost of textbooks, software, music, maybe think about this. It is only your own personal interface with your values that you can come to the conclusion of whether you will or won't buy or not buy. I know I have bought and was thinking of buying things that were not legal copies (NZ$3 on a Coldplay album, $5 on a DVD) on my last overseas trip to Malaysia.

But I am not at all surprised by legal implications and I will have to do more thinking to see how this will change my actions in the future.