Summer is over and the kids are back in school. Teachers are armed with new curricula, new projects, and new computer-based assignments to help their students tackle subjects and acquire new skills. There is so much to teach over the course of the school year. But teachers can’t limit their teaching solely to their lesson plans. If teachers are going to use technology in the classroom, they also need to teach students appropriate use of the internet and the importance of respecting others’ intellectual property rights.

But how do teachers engage students in a discussion of something as seemingly dry and boring as intellectual property rights? One way is to talk about those rights in the context of something students know and understand. Talk about Harry Potter!

A recent incident involving the final book in the Harry Potter series provides a great jumping off point for a classroom discussion of intellectual property rights, particularly copyright. On August 6, 2007, a teenager in France was arrested by Paris police for violating the intellectual property rights of J.K. Rowling. The teen had accomplished an amazing, but illegal task. He single-handedly translated the entire 759-page Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows into French and posted it online. The teen made his translated version of the book available for free to anyone who wanted it, much to the delight of young French readers (the authorized French language version of the book is still being prepared by the publisher and is not due to be released until October 26th).