Teens Don’t Know Piracy Laws

A Microsoft study has indicated that teens would be less likely to illegally download material if they knew the piracy laws.

By now you’d think that everyone had at least a basic grasp of what makes a download legal or illegal.   Evidently not, however. A new study from Microsoft has found that around half US teenagers are not familiar with digital piracy laws, with only 11% fully understanding the legality of downloading music, movies, software and pictures.

According to Vnunet, the study claims that those teens familiar with the law credit their parents, rather than schools, withgiving them the knowledge.

Sherri Erickson, global manager of Microsoft’s Genuine Software Initiative, said, “Widespread access to the internet has amplified the issue of intellectualproperty rights among children and teens. This survey provides more insight into the disparity between intellectual property awareness and young people today, and highlights the opportunity forschools to help prepare students to be good online citizens.”

As a result of the survey, Microsoft will begin working with curriculum company Topics Education, on a program to educate US teens about intellectual property rights. Additionally, they’re launching a site called MyBytes where teens can have hands-on experience developing their own intellectual property and assigning the rights.