Policy

Don't Copy that DVD-ROM

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If the idea of a nine-minute rap routine about petty intellectual property law violations gets your heart beating like it does mine, then get excited! Via Boing Boing, we learn about the pending release of a 21st century reboot of the 1992 classic "Don't Copy That Floppy."

Apparently the original aural assault wasn't enough, because America's youth only picked up the pace of violations. Now, the hip-hop Cassandra of Copyright is back to update his message for the post-floppy generation. According to Cory Doctorow, "it's a doozy":

Taking a page out of The IT Crowd's playbook, suggesting that copying your friends' music, movies and code will lead to you being imprisoned and then forced into brutal slavery by other cons (seriously)….

I wonder if anyone at the [Business Software Alliance] ever sits down and says, "You know, if we keep making stuff like this, eventually people are going to start thinking that giving us money for software only funds more efforts to imprison their loved ones, and thus they should really pirate stuff, if only to starve us of cash for these batshit excursions into private law."

Check out a preview of the new video in all its cheesy glory here. But first, enjoy the original:

Check out Reason's vast intellectual property coverage archive here.