Piracy: What's the Big Deal

For 11-14 yrs / Secondary school / Key stage 3 / PSHE

Did you know one in four over 12s have illegally downloaded film content in the last three months? That’s the highest rate of piracy in the UK in the last five years*. At Media Smart, we have teamed up with Sky, The Industry Trust, The Intellectual Property Office and MPA to develop a new PSHE accredited secondary school resource ‘Piracy: What’s the big deal?’

Our new resources include a short film with TV presenter, content creator and YouTuber, Luke Franks, and TV presenter and producer, Jacqueline Shepherd, who help explain what piracy and copyright means and why it matters to young people. Our research has shown that, whilst it’s important to flag to students that piracy is illegal, they really sit up and take note when they realise the risk piracy brings to their own personal content. Downloading illegal content can allow viruses access to their own technology and could mean they lose valuable assets like homework and coursework. The resources also explore the principle of copyright, highlighting the fact that so many young people today are already content creators themselves and may need to protect their own intellectual property.

Excitingly the resource has a competition element, where your school can WIN £2,000 worth of media or film equipment of its choice (and there are prizes for students too). All you have to do to enter is use the classroom resources and then send us your students’ creative ideas on how to dissuade their peers from engaging in piracy by designing a social media video (this can be in a short film or storyboard form). Full prize details are on our website: www.mediasmart.uk.com/piracy.

This resource carries the PSHE Association Quality Mark and has been developed to support the PSHE curriculum for living in the wider world with media literacy and digital resilience. More specifically, it builds on the PSHE programme of study to create learning opportunities: