A Guide to ….Confusion

A new “highly praised” campaign whose noble goal is to educate kids, teachers and parents together about the dangers of filesharing has been recently initiated. The protagonists are IFPI alongside the charity Childnet. As TorrentFreak righteously notes the legal alternatives they advocate end up in confusion as they direct the kids to p2p clients like LimeWire, Kazaa and sites that sell adult content.

The valuable information is pilled up into a leaflet (see it here - pdf) that enjoys a large distribution through schools, colleges, libraries, record stores, teaching portals and websites in 21 countries. The objective is to precisely inform kids and parents about the risk of filesharing, and to guide them towards using the legal digital music stores, which are listed on pro-music.org.

Thanks to the TorrentFreak’s curiosity and report, we learn that the first 4 sites on the list had no music available for purchasing, the fifth has a very poor offer of songs you can buy, and the sixth website recommends the popular LimeWire or Kazaa for installation. Moreover, it seems that commodore.nl -the first site recommended on the list- delivers ads for a scam site that sells p2p filesharing applications. To make this a full experience as the list advances so are the chances that the kids bump into hardcore adult movies selling sites.

Should we consider this by all means a very successful campaign? Hmm…According to Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media we just have to acknowledge it as such: “The new guide is a very good example of an initiative that offers simple, practical advice to parents and teachers to keep young people safe and legal while enjoying music on the Internet.”