This piece is almost Onion-worthy for its obviousness. According to a study conducted by Bloomberg and the Los Angeles Times, teenagers don't understand copyright law. This is hardly surprising, given that most politicians -- heck, even lawyers -- exhibit similar deficiencies:

Among teens aged 12 to 17 who were polled, 69 per cent said they thought it was legal to copy a CD from a friend who purchased the original. By comparison, only 21 per cent said it was legal to copy a CD if a friend got the music for free. Similarly, 58 per cent thought it was legal to copy a friend's purchased DVD or videotape, but only 19 percent thought copying was legal if the movie wasn't purchased.

Those figures are a big problem for the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America, both of which have spent millions of dollars to deter copying of any kind. The music industry now considers so-called 'schoolyard' piracy -- copies of physical discs given to friends and classmates -- a greater threat than illegal peer-to-peer downloading, according to the RIAA.

Of course, the real question is not whether teenagers know copying traded CDs amounts to infringement; it's whether they care. My own experiences lead me to suspect that they don't. Perhaps, as Cornish and others have suggested, copyright is fading into irrelevancy despite its omnipresence.

Originally by Zonk at Slashdot: Your Rights Online, 9:20 PM

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