The new anti-piracy booklets titled “Illegal File-Sharing: The Risks Aren’t Worth It” will be distributed to students attending all of Singapore’s 164 secondary schools and 16 junior colleges, and copies will be available at all of the country’s 23 National Library branches as well.

The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) will distribute 200,000 copies of a Motion Picture Association-developed booklet outlining the dangers of illegal peer-to-peer file sharing to the country’s secondary school and junior college students. The HIP (Honour IP) Alliance, a public awareness initiative of IPOS, will oversee the distribution, beginning today.

The booklets note that since many P2P applications require users to upload – often invisibly – content at the same time they are downloading, users may be exposing themselves to criminal liability as well.

Of the the $6.1 billion USD in lost revenue that the MPAA attributes to piracy, approximately $1.2 billion USD is alleged to occur across the Asia-Pacific region.

Apparently the move is related to a degree to its ongoing efforts in Malaysia, where the infamous “Lucky” and “Flo” MPAA anti-piracy dogs are the bane of organized crime bootlegging operations.

“They found computers and databases of customers from all over the world and I’m afraid to say that a lot of those customers are here in Singapore. The gangs that are involved in this are organized crime groups, unquestionably organized crime groups,” says Michael Ellis, Senior VP & Regional Director (Asia Pacific), Motion Picture Association – International.

“And Singapore customers who are dialing or emailing their orders to Malaysia and asking for the products to be delivered here are involved and supporting organized crime. And I have to tell you, we know who you are and we’re providing that information to the authorities in Singapore. If you think that by buying one disc or one pirated DVD, you’re not involved in this, it doesn’t affect you, you’re wrong, it does,” says Mr Ellis.

Mr. Ellis also tries to plead with people on an emotional level, saying that “Today’s students are tomorrow’s creators, developers, and owners of intellectual property, and there is a very real danger that unless young people begin thinking meaningfully about the consequences of wholesale copyright theft, the future will be much less bright for the next generation of creators.”

I find his statement interesting, as the present and future existence of the MPAA looks fine to me and by their very own accountants. They recently reported record profits for 2006, thereby making any claims of a “less bright” future nonsensical when their content already saturates P2P and file-sharing networks everywhere and they are still able to make record profits in the process.

The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS), the entity tasked with distribution of the booklets also offers a reason why the campaign is important. It wishes for the public to be responsible ‘Net citizens’ by avoiding copyright
infringement.

They write:

Since 2002, IPOS has actively engaged the public through the HIP Alliance to educate people in the need to respect intellectual property. The HIP Alliance has rolled out more than 50 initiatives jointly supported by government and industry, and this year will focus on highlighting the challenges brought about by technological advancement, such as Internet piracy and the sale of counterfeit goods online. We want to encourage members of the public to be responsible ‘Net citizens’ and avoiding copyright infringement.

Sounds good and all but I have a hunch that larger forces are at work.

Singapore is known for its authoritarian rule, and perhaps the acquiescence to foreign corporate interest lies in the fact that it wishes to combat organized crime’s revenue streams. For why else would they allow them to put anti-piracy booklets in all of its schools and libraries? Surely t has to be more than merely wanting the public to be good “Net citizens.”

Either way, this another black eye for America in my opinion, for sooner or later people around the world are going to grow tired of our companies regularly going into their classrooms and public libraries, and lecturing them about how it’s important that the companies they represent are able to make as much money as possible. Wouldn’t you?

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SOULXTC: “walkin’ the streets of P2P”

In February, two Singaporean men had been jailed four months and three months, respectively, for distributing hundreds of pirated digital music files through an Internet chat programme.

They were the first to be punished for a non-profit offence under Singapore’s Copyright Act.

A third man was let off with a warning because he was only 16 years old at that time of the offence.

The center will let MIT faculty and graduate students conduct research with their counterparts in Singaporean universities and companies. Scientists at the center will primarily concentrate on biomedical science, water and environmental technology, and digital media. Cooperation between MIT and Singapore first began in 1998.

MIT won’t be the lone export in the island nation. Duke University is helping Singapore set up a medical school, while several companies and academics are participating in Biopolis, a multimillion-dollar program to establish the nation as a biotech hub.

Although politicians, parents and employers have roundly complained about the quality of elementary and high school education in the U.S., the university system generally still gets high marks.