Domestic IP Issues
- Domestic Policy and Federal Departments and Agencies
- Domestic Policy and the Congress
- Domestic Policy in the Private Sector
- "Join the © Team" — ESA's Intellectual Property Education Curriculum for Students in Grades K-5
Domestic Policy and Federal Departments and Agencies
The ESA's Intellectual Property Policy staff provides information on the industry, its products, modes of distribution, and the policy priorities of the industry through regulatory filings, correspondence, and meetings with government officials from various departments and agencies with jurisdiction on IP issues.
Domestic Policy and the Congress
The ESA's Intellectual Property Policy staff works closely with the ESA's Congressional Relations Department to analyze legislative proposals and trends, prepare congressional testimony and filings, and brief congressional staff on industry positions and priorities.
Domestic Policy in the Private Sector
Intellectual property policy issues are also commonly addressed between industry partners and advocates for various interest groups. To keep its member companies informed of the latest developments in intellectual property policy, ESA also participates in academic and industry intellectual property symposia and meetings with other associations and interest groups involved in intellectual property issues.
"Join the © Team" — ESA's Intellectual Property Education Curriculum for Students in Grades K-5
The ESA has developed an educational outreach program for elementary school students designed to raise awareness and respect for intellectual property rights. The program provides educational materials to students on the right way to copy words, pictures and other digital content, both at home and at school.
With the help of the © Team characters, Rick the Writer, Patty the Programmer and Alan the Artist, the program introduces students to the ground rules for copying in the classroom, where mistakes can lead to plagiarism. The characters show students how these rules apply outside the classroom, where violations of the rules can also have consequences.
These lessons have become even more important to teachers who continue to report increasingly alarming rates of plagiarism among high school and college students who copy information from the Internet without attribution, often because they do not consider Web sites to be "real" sources like books and journals. As these bad habits may be the result of a lack of early guidance, our educational materials help students to address these issues at the beginning of their academic careers to help them become responsible "cybercitizens."
The ESA's educational materials will introduce even the youngest students to some of the issues arising from copying the work of others, especially when making copies with a computer. The materials will also provide positive guidelines to help students "copy right" in school, at home and on the Internet. We hope to instill in young people respect for the intellectual property rights of authors, artists, designers, interactive content providers, and entertainment software producers.
This curriculum will also help teachers instruct students on basic research skills, showing them how to utilize computers better for learning and how to retrieve and use information from the Internet legally and responsibly.
It is our hope that these materials will help raise the awareness of students as well as of parents and educators about the rules protecting intellectual property and the need to make students familiar with these rules from an early age. You can view the complete "Join the © Team" curriculum at www.jointhecteam.com.
If you have any questions or would like additional information about the "Join the © Team" curriculum, please contact Jennifer O'Reilly at Jennifer@theESA.com.
ESA's Intellectual Property Education Workshops for Students
The ESA has developed an Intellectual Property (IP) Education Workshop program for middle and high school students that is designed to provide them an easy way to learn about intellectual property rights, game piracy and the interactive entertainment industry.
The interactive workshop will help students explore the significance of intellectual property in their everyday lives and help some of the myths surrounding it. Through the workshop and the dialogue it fosters, students will begin to understand why it's important to respect the intellectual property rights of others and why violating those rights can have consequences, not only for others but for themselves.
By putting this information in simple and clear terms, the workshop provides students with the knowledge and tools to be productive and safe cyber-citizens as they use the Internet, not only in school but also at home.
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