Stopping the Pied Pipers of Piracy Who Steal $600 Billion of Intellectual Property Every Year

They called them the Pied Pipers of Piracy. While most were sleeping, an entire college generation was enlisted by Napster then Grokster to become digital pirates and rip off artists because it was quick, easy, free and anonymous. Otherwise decent people began acting and thinking like common thieves. In a fast-paced half-hour, the PBS weekly show, SmallBusinessSchool, goes behind the doors of Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp in Los Angeles to find two lawyers who took on Napster and Grokster and won. Or did they? Intellectual property is increasingly the prime mover of the global economy, yet $600 billion of it is pirated annually, posing a threat to all businesses. The episode aims to join with those calling for a new wave of public education about intellectual property, and provide tips and techniques to help protect the IP of small business owners worldwide. The program also features: * Daniel Walker, a composer, to highlight how three professional organizations -- ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC -- fight for the royalties and rights protection of artists, and why all other trade associations need to follow suit. * Bob Tarcea, who with Joseph Garcia opened the world of signing to babies. Tarcea talks about young mothers who have confessed to copying his copyrighted materials. He's also trying to stop a British man who uses eBay to blatantly rip him off. * Experts at MacroVision and Microsoft, software firms trying to add some "friction" to slow the rip-off process. This episode of SmallBusinessSchool begins airing this weekend on PBS stations. The Voice of America will air this episode worldwide in January. About SmallBusinessSchool: Since 1994 a weekly, half-hour television show airs on PBS-member stations in the USA, hundreds of Canadian cable stations, and thousands of cable stations throughout the world. The series has been dubbed in Mandarin, French, Spanish, Arabic, and Russian. For more: Broadcast schedules(for just two weeks and then streaming video): http://smallbusinessschool.org/webapp/sbs/1100/1108/video.jsp Home page for this episode: http://smallbusinessschool.org/webapp/sbs/1100/1108/homepage.jsp The executive summary or overview: http://smallbusinessschool.org/webapp/sbs/1100/1108/profile.jsp The transcript: http://smallbusinessschool.org/webapp/sbs/1100/1108/transcript.jsp The case study guide: http://smallbusinessschool.org/webapp/sbs/1100/1108/guide.jsp Press release online: http://smallbusinessschool.org/webapp/sbs/Media/1108.jsp

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