Article 4: Anti-piracy ad campaign targets youth (education)

Pub Date: 26/04/2007 Pub: BT Page: 10Headline: Anti-piracy ad campaign targets youthBy: Tettyana JasliPage Heading: Singapore NewsSubject: Singapore Youth, Singapore Copyright
Only 22% of youth concerned about IP infringement: poll HONOUR Intellectual Property (HIP) Alliance, an Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) initiative, will launch a new advertising campaign today aimed at young people who are engaging in online piracy. The launch coincides with World Intellectual Property (IP) Day. HIP Alliance brings together a group of public and private sector organisations with a common interest in pursuing the need for education on IP. 'The new advertisements have been developed to be more personal and contemporary to increase (youths') understanding of the impact of online piracy on their lives, the original creators and the very content they enjoy,' said Ms Liew Woon Yin, director-general of IPOS. This year, IPOS intends to focus more on the moral and educational aspects. It feels that the educational rather than a prohibition approach, is more likely to have a long term impact. The new campaign focus was developed in view of the findings of the IPOS Perception Study 2007, which investigated young Singaporeans' attitudes towards IP. The IPOS-commissioned study, which was carried out by Blackbox Research Pte Ltd, was conducted through peer investigation, focus groups and an online survey with 630 Singaporeans aged 14 to 35. The key findings of the study are that while local youths agree with the need for IP protection in principle, they do not necessarily walk the talk in practice. Although 82 per cent of young Singaporeans are aware of the importance of IP protection, only 22 per cent, or two in 10 are concerned about IP infringement. Meanwhile, it seems that the 'economic national interest' argument about how piracy and counterfeiting hurt Singapore's economy may not cut it anymore with young Singaporeans: only 45 per cent saw this reason as most important to IP protection, as opposed to 75 per cent who cited supporting local creativity as the most important. According to a report by Channel NewsAsia earlier this month, some $9 billion is lost to piracy every year.

My reflections:
Piracy was something I did not really care about in the past. However during the recent years, I realized, through the media and advertisements in the movies, I realized that it is actually something very serious.
From the article, HIP (Honour intellectual property) is coming with a campaign to teach youths the seriousness of infringing intellectual properties, through advertisements, regarding the impact of online piracy on the lives of youths, the original creators and the content they enjoy. This campaign concentrates more on the educational values and less of the prohibition part of piracy. So, they would not go, “You MUST not infringe intellectual property”, but instead talk more about the consequences of infringing intellectual property, not just on the youths but also the original creators. This would not just teach youths not to infringe IP, but also realize how important the products of the original creators are, and that people respect it by purchasing original copies.
I believe that this is a very good start to encourage youths not to infringe IP through making them think and putting themselves in the shoes of the creators. To the creators, this campaign would be a great help as they would feel that people are respecting their creations more and would come up with more fantastic products.
To the youths, it is a sort of experience to understand the anger that original creators have when they realized that the products they put so much time in is being “stolen” and not respected.
As a youth of this society, through this piece of information, I am better able to feel for the creators and respect their works. Despite some not abiding to the laws of infringement, I must say that the majority of Singaporeans do have integrity and will not succumb to piracy.
To me, the most shocking thing about this article is the last line, “According to a report by Channel NewsAsia earlier this month, some $9 billion is lost to piracy every year.” I think that is very shocking as I never knew that piracy can cause such “damage”.
9 billion is lost because people download music and share files and not buy the original CDs. I hope that people’s attitude would change and stop piracy. Not is a sense that they have to riot or make their message heard, but as an individual, not to use the internet to infringe others creations.
I think that this piece of information is useful to those that are currently infringing intellectual property. They can take this chance to learn about the consequences of succumbing to piracy and how others would feel. Hopefully through the series of advertisement the HIP has came up with, not just youths, but even adults, can learn and get educated on the IT issues that has bothered many original creators.
From the article, I hope that people would get the message about the seriousness of infringing IP and would stop piracy as an individual.

(495 words)