The project received the support of the Ministries of Education and Culture and is designed to raise awareness of intellectual property rights protection among school children. Part of it is a 30-minute film explaining how music, film and software is created and why it is important to protect creative content.

The film features popular young Polish musicians, actors and computer game designers. Targeted at children aged 13-16, the film, with an attached guidebook for teachers, was distributed in May (with a letter of support from both ministries) to approximately 6,500 junior high-schools in Poland. Teachers were requested to complete and return a special evaluation form and state whether IPR protection should be discussed with children as part of their school curriculum.

The “Be original” program will continue in autumn 2006 and is planned to be extended to cover younger children as well.

To supplement the “Be Original” campaign, a special guide is planned to be released to inform parents of the various threats associated with children’s use of peer-to-peer networks allowing unauthorized sharing of music, film and computer files through the internet.

Agnieszka Rapacka, ZPAV