James Delahunty
17 Nov 2004 10:15
DownhillHillBattle.org announced two new project sites in the passed few days. The first site is aimed at kids and students in response to the attempts by lobbying groups for Hollywood and the software industry to force misleading and propagandistic curriculums about filesharing and online rights into public schools. KidsSmellBullshit.com also is running a competition for kids to write letters to the BSA and MPAA about their feelings over the curriculum being pushed into their school. The prize to be won is an iPod mini.
The second site is aimed at adults and was setup to put together a fair copyright and technology law curriculum. Downhill Battle feels that the current anti-piracy advertisements and curriculums being pushed at students by the RIAA, MPAA and BSA are one sided and leave out important area's such as fair use rights. The site states, "The RIAA, MPAA, BSA, and other organizations are pushing curriculums into schools that distort copyright law, neglect fair use and the First Amendment, and mislead our kids about their legal rights and responsibilities. It's time to create some accurate and informative information sources for teachers who want to address these crucial issues".
The Downhill Battle projects have been receiving much media attention lately. One project lately called "Service Pack 2 Torrent" was setup to distribute Windows XP Service Pack 2 using Bit Torrent. The project proved to Microsoft and other major corporations that P2P has huge advantages over normal distribution methods. Some people trying to download SP2 from Microsoft had to wait until the servers were able to send it to them, but the Downhill Battle project, offered high speed downloads to a huge amount of people, and because they were using a Bit Torrent tracker, could have distributed to many more people. Microsoft however, seemed angry about this and decided to send Downhill Battle a letter forcing them to stop the project.
Sources:
Downhill Battle
Kids Smell Bullshit
CopyrightCurriculum.com