How Lobbyists Turned Big US Education Reform Bill Into The 'No Copyright Propaganda Left Behind' Act
Techdirt. 2016-02-02
Summary:
You may have heard that, in early December, amid great fanfare, President Obama replaced the terrible No Child Left Behind law and replaced it with the "Every Student Succeeds Act" which, among other things, gave more power to the states when it came to educational standards, moving them away from the federal government. There's actually a lot of good things in ESSA (mainly getting away from the really horrible parts of NCLB), but there were plenty of little "gifts" to various lobbyists. And, apparently, that includes Hollywood's lobbyists. Honestly, I wouldn't have ever spotted this if the MPAA front-group Creative Future hadn't blasted out a "thank Congress for ESSA" campaign page, which talked about the important "copyright education" parts included in ESSA. Hollywood lobbyists are somewhat famous for having their fingers in just about everything, so is it really a surprise that they got some bogus propaganda buried in a childhood education bill? But, indeed, search through ESSA and you'll find ridiculous copyright propaganda requirements for no reason other than because the MPAA lobbied heavily on it: 
So what did the MPAA lobbying get? Well, basically it says that anywhere where the bill talks about providing better training and understanding of technology, it also must include some one-sided propaganda about copyright law. Really. Over and over again you see it: 
If you can't read those, basically, each one says that any time there's a mention of integrating technology or getting better technology training, the law includes a silly misleading parenthetical "(including education about the harm of copyright piracy)." Of course, it's hard to see what that has to do with education standards, or better educating people about the role of technology. But, most importantly, it's the latest in a long and increasingly sad and desperate attempt by Hollywood to inject copyright propaganda into public schools -- an effort that, even when it's been successful tends to result in kids mocking the hamfisted attempts that not only appear totally out of touch with reality, but tend to actually make students respect copyright even less. Trying to jam in one-sided propaganda that ignores things like fair use, or the abuses of the copyright system, is so blatantly and obviously ridiculous to kids these days that this will be laughed away as propaganda, as with each of their previous "educational" campaigns. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story 
So what did the MPAA lobbying get? Well, basically it says that anywhere where the bill talks about providing better training and understanding of technology, it also must include some one-sided propaganda about copyright law. Really. Over and over again you see it: If you can't read those, basically, each one says that any time there's a mention of integrating technology or getting better technology training, the law includes a silly misleading parenthetical "(including education about the harm of copyright piracy)." Of course, it's hard to see what that has to do with education standards, or better educating people about the role of technology. But, most importantly, it's the latest in a long and increasingly sad and desperate attempt by Hollywood to inject copyright propaganda into public schools -- an effort that, even when it's been successful tends to result in kids mocking the hamfisted attempts that not only appear totally out of touch with reality, but tend to actually make students respect copyright even less. Trying to jam in one-sided propaganda that ignores things like fair use, or the abuses of the copyright system, is so blatantly and obviously ridiculous to kids these days that this will be laughed away as propaganda, as with each of their previous "educational" campaigns. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story