MPAA scouting for young hearts and minds

The top brass at the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) must have spent the entire weekend drinking champagne and smoking Cuban cigars after their latest spectacular PR coup.

Because the MPAA understands the Jesuit saying "Give Me the Child Until He Is Seven and I Will Show You the Man", Los Angeles Boy Scouts can now, lucky them, earn badges for understanding how copyright works and why piracy is bad.

The scouts will have the basics of copyright law hammered into their young minds, and to win the badge will have to know five types of copyrighted works and three kinds of copyright theft.

The youngsters will also be taken on a field trip, possibly to a movie studio, to learn how piracy harms people.

According to an Associated Press report, the movie industry developed the curriculum for the badge, which shows the international copyright symbol, a film reel and a music CD.

"Working with the Boy Scouts of Los Angeles, we have a real opportunity to educate a new generation about how movies are made, why they are valuable, and hopefully change attitudes about intellectual property theft," MPAA chairman Dan Glickman said in a statement on Friday.

The badge isn't a merit badge, which means the scouts don't actually have to win one to progress through the ranks. Other such activity patches include ones for conservation or volunteering work. ®