A shot from another video in which a girl’s drawings are undercut by the distribution of cell phone pictures.
 
In their never-ending quest to close Pandora’s box and stop illegal file-sharing, the geniuses at the Center For Copyright Infringement (who boast the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America, Comcast, and Verizon on their board) have produced an educational campaign designed to coax elementary schoolers into paying paying for media. There are plans to institute the program in California classrooms later this year, with different materials for each grade level.

Now, I am from the DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) generation, and we were taught about the evils of drugs from day one. I also went to one of those oh-so-progressive schools that taught abstinence-only sex education. Without incriminating myself too much, I’m going to go ahead and say campaigns like this just don’t work, and the fact that this one is obviously corporate propaganda makes it even more laughable.

I’m a proponent of free information, and while I recognize that creators must be compensated for their work (and that other people have much better insight into how to do that than I do), it’s not as if this thing was put together by a bunch of concerned artists who felt downloading was hurting their bottom line. This is from the RIAA and the MPAA, the original backbone of SOPA, and the people that are making all the money off of underpaid artists now. I guess since legislation didn’t work, they’re going to try and conscript the youth?

It’s actually kind of enjoyable, watching them gasp for air with terrible educational materials. Hell, the kids they’re making this for could probably make a better video. In fact, I’ll bet they could pirate the editing software, first.
 

 
Via Wired

He lets the rhythm hit ‘em…
 
Yep we love Jerusalem-based Kutiman for his rhythmic scavenger video mixes. But we shouldn’t forget the pioneers that put the practice into place.

Nearly a year ago, someone called The Forger—who we’re thinking is a composite character of videographer Ben Stokes and rhythm master Jack Dangers, both of Meat Beat Manifesto—started releasing beat videos that looped, sampled, layered and scratched up found footage of subjects both unknown and iconic. And instead of just slicing in nice people playing instruments in their bedrooms, we also get movie scenes, bits of news, and other lovely ephemera.

The Forger’s expert curating and editing in the mixes to stripped-down funk and dub help evoke an almost spectral feel to the pieces, as if these people and characters in them are bound to repeat their musical and other actions forever in the fog of media.

To start with, check out Peter Tosh, James Brown and Fred Wesley backing the King of Pop beatboxing in “The MJ Bumbaclot Element”
 

 
After the jump: check The Forger’s salute to spaghetti Westerns and Russian beatboxers…