Anti-Piracy Push Merits Scout Badge

Camping, lifesaving, navigating and ... protecting copyrights?

The Motion Picture Assn. announced Monday that the Scout Assn. of Hong Kong -- the former British colony’s coeducational version of the Boy Scouts -- has launched the world’s first merit badge program “focused on respect for and protection of intellectual property.”

Mike Ellis, director of the film association’s Asia-Pacific operations, said the merit badge program was part of a broader effort to educate the public about the effect of piracy on creativity. The badge program will give thousands of “future leaders” a better understanding of “the value of intellectual property and the importance of protecting it,” Ellis said.

The badge features an abstract design created by the Scouts themselves.

For Hollywood studios and other copyright holders, educating the public and youths in particular has become an increasingly important part of their campaign against piracy.

The Motion Picture Assn. of America has made similar overtures to the Boy Scouts of America. But Greg Shields, a spokesman for the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America, said a merit badge for copyright protection would be “a little unusual” because merit badges typically relate either to career skills or lifelong interests.

“Abiding by the law would be in the very Scout oath and law,” he said. “That would not be a merit badge; that’s kind of an expectation, so to speak, of a Scout.”