Hong Kong Boy Scouts Track Infringement
There are new players in Hong Kong’s campaign to stop illegal sharing of music and movies. They are young, Internet-savvy, and their compensation comes in the form of a merit badge. They are Boy Scouts.
About 200,000 “youth ambassadors” from the Boy Scouts and other youth groups have been enlisted to help in Hong Kong’s Youth Ambassador against Internet Piracy Scheme. As part of the campaign, participants pledge to respect IP rights and report suspected instances of infringement they witness online.
Hong Kong officials started the campaign as a pilot program last February. Soon after, they unveiled a new Boy Scout merit badge for IP rights and protection created in collaboration with the Motion Picture Association. Hong Kong’s Commerce, Industry and Technology Bureau then officially launched the youth ambassador program in a public ceremony in July.
“We believe that apart from enforcing the law, it is also very important to gradually change the culture and the mindset of our young people to realize that illegal uploading and downloading is piracy,” said Joseph WP Wong, secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology. “It is simply shoplifting and is wrong, never mind whether it is criminal or not.”
Hong Kong Commissioner of Customs and Excise Timothy Tong reported in July that during the five months of the youth ambassador pilot program, Customs received more than 1,200 reports of alleged infringement by users of BitTorrent, a file sharing application. More than 60% of the unauthorized content sources had been removed. Most of the remaining reports proved invalid.
