Teen Ethics: Free Is A Tough Habit For Kids To BreakTeen Ethics: Free Is A Tough Habit For Kids To Break

If any adult is hip to how teens grapple with the ethics of downloading copyrighted content from file-sharing sites, it's Parry Aftab.

An attorney whose insight on Internet privacy and security has been sought by the Bush administration and Internet service providers, Aftab has made it her mission to educate teens about copyright infringement. She's assembled a group called Teenangels, a subset of the young people involved in her Wired Safety nonprofit organization. They've been trained in online safety by the FBI and are trying to educate other high-school students across the country.

And many of those kids have, at some time, illegally downloaded music or movies. "If they're 12 and telling you they're not doing it, they're lying," Aftab says.

Having seen how teens embraced music file-sharing, Aftab worries a similar future awaits movies. Music, she says, has been a confusing issue for teens because they wonder why they can record tunes from a radio station without reprisal while facing possible legal action for file-swapping. Even though everyone in Teenangels knows that film piracy is illegal, a third have admitted to Aftab that they've illegally downloaded movies. "I think we've got a serious ethical issue here," she says. "We've got to put the genie back in the bottle."

This led her to set up a program called Peers 2 Peers that offers online guides to intellectual property and piracy in an attempt to get teens to spread the word. By January, Aftab expects to have lesson plans focusing on movie piracy available for teachers. (Details are available at www.peers2peers.org.)

In the meantime, her advice for movie and music companies wanting to take a bite out of file-sharing: Get 'em young and let them be customers. All movie and music sites require buyers to be at least 18 years old, primarily because they rely on credit cards. "The first service that says 'kids 14 and over can use our site,'" she predicts, "is going to own the kids' market."

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