"Don’t Copy That Floppy" Software Piracy

​In conversations we have with students about Digital Citizenship one of the topics to talk about is Software Piracy. 
Piracy is not the glamorized world of Captain Jack Sparrow, it is  the illegal copying, distribution, or use of software and here is a shocking statistic: About 36% of all software in current use is stolen. 

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There are many resources out there for this subject but far and away my favorite has been "Don't Copy That Floppy"
This was a video that came out in 1992 and is an anti-copyright infringement campaign. It tried to show that making right choice regarding copying programs was cool and hip. Trust me, it is a MUST SEE! Just the "cheese factor" alone makes it awesome. But oh no.. it wasn't over in the 90's! They made a sequel in 2009 with the same star!

​Try looking at these two videos and have your students to a compare & contrast on them. Besides the differences in the dress and music, ask your students "what else do they notice"?
 
You can watch both the videos here

The big take away is that they BOTH stress the importance to teens of taking personal responsibility in not pirating software. The major DIFFERENCE between them are the consequences. In ‘92 they stress that “if you do keep pirating software, the developers will stop making them” (by the way, this didn’t happen!) In ‘09 they stress that “if you do you and your family can be found guilty of a crime” (make sure the watch the end of the video about the testimonial from Jeremiah Mondello.

Read more about these videos here on Wikipedia

I love how they reference the “Saved By The Bell” feel and the “classic bubblegum hip-hop” style.

Follow this up with some real dialogue and analysis about piracy today. For example look at this chart from the Wall Street Journal

and you can have your students answer questions like these:

1. In your own words what do you think "rates of pirated software" means
2. By looking at this chat which country would you say does the MOST software piracy?
3. Both Russia and India are tied 63% which one of these would you say has a higher "per capita" rate of software piracy?
4. The dollar value of software piracy was at 63 billion when this chart was made in 2011. Do think this value is higher or lower today? Why?