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White House Wants New Copyright Law Crackdown
An anonymous reader writes "The White House is concerned that 'illegal streaming of content' may not be covered by criminal law, saying 'questions have arisen about whether streaming constitutes the distribution of copyrighted works.' To resolve that ambiguity, it wants a new law to 'clarify that infringement by streaming, or by means of other similar new technology, is a felony in appropriate circumstances'""
Looks like Obama is paying another installment on the debt he owes to his Hollywood buddies.
Between Democrats in bed with Hollywood and Republicans in bed with big business, wouldn't it be nice to have at least *one* choice in an election who doesn't support draconian DRM, Feds kicking in our doors because little Jimmy downloaded an advance screener of The Dark Knight, and ISP's tracking and archiving our every click on the internet? Would that be too goddamn much to ask?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
1) Someone noticed that something popular is not illegal. ...
2) Lobby to have it made illegal.
3)
4) Profit.
Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
You can no longer compete on the world stage in terms of products, don't innovate anything, and have more or less given up on educating your people.
But, the biggest priority of the White House is to ensure that streaming content is a fucking felony???
Enjoy your decline into irrelevance and the dark ages. I used to greatly admire what America stood for.
The say slavery is over, but Obama is clearly up for sale.
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
I'm sick of him selling-out to these megacorps. Damn Republican. What we need is a Democrat president who is not a puppet of the corporations.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
You have to admit that copyright infringement is a major problem that needs to be handled one way or another.
Why? If people create content regardless of copyright infringement, which is the purpose of copyright, I fail to see why it's a major problem that needs to be handled.
Copyright infringement is supposed to be CIVIL LAW, not CRIMINAL LAW.
If the USA is to continue this trend of criminalizing everything under the sun, then perhaps the next thing we need to criminalize is when elected and appointed government officials violate the US Constitution. Let's make that a felony.
"Streaming" is mostly a clarification of law, much more threatening is the authorization of wiretap, perviously allowed only in "serious" cases and terrorism.
with free shows paid for by advertising, like TV or radio? Uh, wait a second....
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Nobody has gone to jail for crashing the world economy.
Nobody has gone to jail for authorizing or committing acts of torture.
Nobody has gone to jail for placing unconstitutional wiretaps.
Yet we have room in our prisons for people who share files. It is more clear than ever that the US justice system exists to protect the powerful against the less powerful. There is no justice system, there is an exploitation system.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
1b) Will a large company/group of companies benefit if 1 is illegal?
They're free to release their content and for free if they want to.
His point wasn't that people can't create content freely.
His point is that the purpose of copyright is to encourage the creation of creative works. Today, with the existing system, there are PLENTY of creative works being produced. Therefore, copyright certainly does not need to be made more restrictive, and in fact the opposite may be true.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I am so glad the Pres and Co. have sorted out the middle east, the world economy and that pesky natural disaster in Japan and have time to focus on enriching their pals in the MAFIAA. Barry you are truly the best benevolent ruler ever.
Write in moot then for all it matters; just stop voting Democrat / Republican until they stop being idiots or put forward a candidate with a proven track record.
How does it feel to be a liar with pants constantly on fire?
Um, if there's no law covering it, how can it be illegal? Isn't everything by default legal until either a law is passed regarding it, or a court case interprets an already existing law to cover it?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
I need more people like you. People seem to think that copyright is about "compensating" people or "being fair". The funny thing is that people who claim to be conservative and for small government often seem pro-copyright. Which is bizarre, since it is really one of the first socialist policies enacted by the young US government, along with patents, the postal service, and postal roads. I'm at a loss... :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I wonder how many constituents wrote letters to the President about this serious problem? Of course, none did. We need a separation of Corporations and State, now.
Well that is one of the advantages of the USA over others. term limits on the president.
Now we just need term limits for all elected officials and maybe we can finally start making some progress.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
"But the fact remains, piracy is so rampant, pirates have literally chased developers away from the platform and literally created the entire ad ware market on Android"
But the only way this could happen is if pirates made pay-apps economically non-viable - which means that without piracy, most of those adware programs would be ad-free but require some level of payment instead. As things are now, they are mostly available in both ad-funded and for-pay, adless versions. So if your conclusion is accepted, it follows that piracy has indirectly increased user choice.
He did an about face on telecom immunity before the election. If you thought he would listen to the people, you either were not paying attention or are stupid.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
It's the only way to legally keep them from voting.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
with big business? What in the hell is Wall Street then? If that is not the top end of big business then I don't know what is. Who is GE, who is Google? They are both in bed with big business. This is President Wall Street, from his cabinet picks to the bills that pass. Oh sure, they have ominous we are going to rein in big business names, but you can be damn sure all those contribute are immediately exempt, like how none of the big unions are subject to the new health care law.
We can't change the Democrats or Republicans so we need to work on the American people. They need to learn that the only way change will occur is if they elect people who don't ascribe to the party line of either the D or R side. Trouble is, far too many are interested in getting everything handed to them while at the same time decrying its cost. The American people need to change before their government will.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
It's also strange that many leftists seem to adore copyright, even though it's a system designed around a monopoly on thought and removal of freedom.
Greed makes for strange bedfellows, I guess.
I would be shocked if less than 99% of people viewed copyright as a utility to protect your intangible (intellectual) property in the same way a car alarm and criminal laws protect your house, car, and person. People support eternal copyright, for example, because you own your house and have the right to give it to your wife when you pass and then to your children and then to your grand children and at no point does it simply become forfeit because the house has existed for a declared number of years.
I don't know how long it has been the case, but modern society certain views copyright as a protection against property that you explicitly own and should own forever. The underlying purposes of copyright and fine points of intellectual property are far too abstract for the majority of Americans to even begin to comprehend.
I have always liked the idea of streaming copyrighted material as being legal, so that those who know how to save streamed data get rewarded for their skills, and those who do not receive no unprecedented benefits. What it ultimately means is that there are different laws for Geeks and hackers than for the rest of society, to the benefit of the former, as it should be. To be honest, it's kind of surprising there's any debate at all. If the state is going to prevent us from downloading content, then they ought to be preventing us from streaming content. Not that I agree at all with what they are doing. What they don't get is that streaming *IS* a form of downloading, and those who know what they are doing can always save streams. Silly rabbit!
Page 10 of the actual whitepaper.
I like how "appropriate" is not spelled out.
import system.cool.Sig;
> Why? If people create content regardless of copyright infringement, which is the purpose of copyright, I fail to see why it's a major problem that needs to be handled.
Because the United States creates a great deal of IP, as do many countries. The people pirating are not only the people who would not pay for it--so market size decreases, GDP decreases, and trade imbalances increase. The biggest long-term threat to the United States, after Global Warming and possibly after spiraling healthcare and higher education costs, is the trade imbalance. We send more and more money outside the country to buy things. A bigger economy means more money for the few people at the top, but MOST of America is NOT at the top, and sending money out means that capital leaves and goes to buy things, putting other people at the top, leaving us in a worse and worse position (except for a very few) as the gini coefficient increases.
That being said, making copyright law on that basis is arguably unconstitutional. The only reason Congress is empowered to make copyright law is to promote the development of copyrightable works. (The terminology is actually "science and the useful arts, IIRC, but as it was understood two hundred years ago). They also have the power to regulate commerce between the states and with foreign nations, but making copyright law under the Commerce Clause is reading the IP clause entirely out of the Constitution, which should not be legitimate under any reasonable principles of interpretation. But most if not all courts would probably accept it anyway.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
What happens if you actually happen to find someone who is doing the country some good? Would it not be better to allow them to stay in power?
Not worth the risk, IMHO. Nobody can hold The Ring for that long and not be corrupted by it.
How does it feel to be a liar with pants constantly on fire?
> I need more people like you. People seem to think that copyright is about "compensating" people or "being fair". The funny thing is that people who claim to be conservative and for small government often seem pro-copyright. Which is bizarre, since it is really one of the first socialist policies enacted by the young US government, along with patents, the postal service, and postal roads. I'm at a loss... :)
Well, to be fair, one rationale of copyright--not the primary one or the stated one, but one that makes it an acceptable policy for many rather than merely something economists say is useful--is the Lockean idea that people should have some reward or ownership over the product of their labor.
Out of curiosity, why do you consider patents, the postal service, postal roads, and copyrights to be socialist?
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
I suspect most of them already are. So many things are illegal today.. hell, I'm commiting a criminal offense just by writing this post. I'm doing it from work, and the rules (which everyone ignores) forbid personal use of the internet or any form of political debate online (Lest it reflect badly on the organisation). This means I am accessing a computer system without the authrisation of the owner - a criminal offense under the Computer Misuse Act 1990.
Everyone commits crimes on a regular basis. It's just that most of them are so trivial that there is no reason to enforce the law, even when in princible there could be a jail term of many years.
If all this paper did was suggest categorizing streaming as distribution rather than performance, that would be small potatoes. It also recommends:
The article focuses on streaming, but the real meat here is in the use of government funds and police powers for the private benefit of rights-holders.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
In my office full of conservative people at my work all believe Copyright laws should be dissolved completely. Much like 1960's nuclear technologies, updates are often necessary to make things work for the benefit of the most people. Last time I checked, we have almost no conservative politicians in California on ANY side of the party spectrum. They all suck at the teat of Hollywood.
Socialist Soviet Russia had no such thing as copyright, and all works published in Russia immediately entered the public domain.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Wait, our choices are "perpetual copyright" or "self-entitled bastards who think they should get everything for free"? WTF ever happened to *sane* copyright law instead? Say backing it down to a level where creators have plenty of time to make money off of $WORK but it does eventually enter the public domain, preferably within a generation or so.
Say 50 years total from date of first presentation, or 5 years per term with an increasing fee schedule for each successive term purchased (with the first four being dirt cheap, then ramping up dramatically each time -- that way it eventually becomes unreasonable as a business decision to renew Steamboat Willie again)
If more and more of the 'silent majority' - if you will - stays home, then the only result is more bug-fuck crazy fringe candidates being elected by an increasingly influential bug-fuck crazy fringe electorate.
Go back to pulling numbers out of your ass. 14 year copyright, 14 year patent, end of story. Even that's too long for most people to benefit... I would agree to a 6 year copyright with three filed extensions: up to 24 years. The first would be a cheap ($100) re-file; the second, moderately expensive ($1000) because if you're not making the cash in 12 years something is wrong. Besides that, you need to file all direct source material: all of the products of labor that went into the final product. This means all computer source code (but not necessarily design documentation), all the master tracks (but not necessarily sheet music, lyrics sheets, etc), computer source document files for books, etc. Where the line is drawn between "creating" and "assembling" ... writing words, formatting them, etc, is "creating," while "Converting to PDF, printing," and so on is "assembling."
So if you want that big 18 or 24 year copyright, your software is getting PD'd open source, your master tracks are getting released, your word documents are being handed out, and any in-house proprietary tools you wrote or commissioned that are essential for building your work (remember, running a tool to convert X into Y is not creating, it's assembling) are also getting dumped with them.
Also, a record of all tools needed is included, and who owns the rights; upon filing, these rights holders are contacted for a copy of their tool, if not on file already in another copyright extension. If they don't extend their copyright, then that tool is released; if they do extend their copyright--twice, past the 12 year first extension--then they are also required to release all source material. This is to ensure that such tools are on file, in case someone keeps a "very specialized" piece of software NDA'd and shifted to only a few clients (a couple dozen corporations have it). The software would still go out of copyright in 6 or 12 years, but only a few people would have it to release; those corporations may well not care anymore about that particular iteration of that tool by then, and it may be lost, and incompatible with old work, and now you lose that functionality. So we want it on record: what you used, who owns it, and a copy of it.
I should run for office.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
You know, I'd have some sympathy if pirates had a "cause" anymore.
Years ago, we said "we're pirating music because they won't let us download it!"
And they made download stores.
Then we said "we're pirating music because they won't sell individual tracks!"
And they let us buy single tracks.
Then we said "we're pirating music because they add DRM!"
And they stopped adding DRM.
Then we said "we're pirating music because 128kbps is crap!"
And they gave us 256kbps+ tracks.
Then we said "we're pirating music because the major labels have a monopoly!"
And now any indie artist can get on iTunes and other major music stores.
And we still pirate.
Because all along, we really just wanted stuff for free.
I'm all for copyright reform, but really: The latest music, movies, and games are not vital liberties, and they take a lot of time and money to make. If someone wanted to give their content away for free, they would have done so. So ask yourself: If a person who made something you want expects compensation, why do you deserve to have it for free?
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
jackass?
Wars without end: Check
Spending us into default: Check
Harsh punishments for minor crimes: Check
Bush sucked. Obama sucks. To be fair, pretty much all politicians are egomaniac control freaks with a certain amount of charisma.
At least it's a bipartisan trait :/
Protecting property rights is all the state is doing, and it is one of the basic fundamental functions of government. That is different than granting a commercial monopoly. Maybe you're confused by the "Intellectual Property" term. That's intentional, because the things that fall under that definition are not really "property" at all. The term is just a clever trick by corporate lawyers to confuse the issue.
If I build a pool in my back yard, I have monopoly control over who uses the pool.
And if you didn't, you would never build the pool. Why put your own time and resources into something when it can be taken away from you? But to compare it to copyright, you would have to not only have control over your own pool, but the ability to ban your neighbors from building a similar pool in their back yards.
Arguing that a monopoly granted by the state is wrong is arguing that all property is theft: it undermines the whole basis of capitalism.
Not really. I'm reminded of the Jefferson's statement about ideas in reference to patents: "... no one possesses the less because everyone possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me receives [it] without lessening [me], as he who lights his [candle] at mine receives light without darkening me."
You're thinking of it entirely wrong. The monopoly that copyright grants you isn't control of the work you created - you can do anything you want with it regardless of copyright. The monopoly is a ban on any other individual's right to make a copy. So it's actually a restriction on rights, rather than protection of them.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
First and foremost, copyright exists to FAIRLY reward creation by means of COMPENSATION. Only after the creator has been FAIRLY COMPENSATED is the public at large intended to receive the works. I
Compensated? As in monetarily? Copyright law at its core says no such thing. Copyright law is about control, and nothing more - that is, a temporary monopoly over control for a period of time before which it goes back to the public... control to do with it as the owner sees fit - selling it, giving it away under particular terms, etc. Case in point: People copyrighting their works to prevent it from being ripped off by others in some form, but allowing free distribution/sharing of said work [or doing so under licensing schemes that rely on the existence of copyright law - like Creative Commons].
tealing before the creator can be compensated is completely contrary to the notion of encouraging creation.
Of course that beggs the question of whether theft, or stealing is at all applicable or relevant. And this also ignores the fact that creativity is not ENTIRELY about financial gain - and to treat it as such is intellectually dishonest.
This is such a simple concept and one which is extremely well document. Its really hard for me not to look down on those who come to some other conclusion as somehow being mentally deficient. Literally.
Pardon my snarky nature, but the irony is kinda dripping profusely.
On what world is it possible for creation to not be rewarded and it to concurrent encourage creation?
I think that is a false premise - one that assumes a lot. For one, people created before copyright exited, and even with the challenge of wrestling with piracy they have adapted and succeeded - the ones whom proved capable. Even if the concept was to go into the shitter, people will find a way to make money off their works, people WILL make money off their works, people will create - whether for profit or on for their own reasons. The doom and gloom shtick has been perpetuated since the 60s, with audio tapes, and here we are almost 50 years later, adaptation has occurred successfully.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
What if 'we' defines a different set of people each time? What if 'we' represents a smaller number of people each time?
I think you're taking specific points and assuming they represent everyone's opinion here, when in reality this site, and every other gathering of more than one person, is made up of individuals. ESPECIALLY a site with lots of readers.
That's not a sale. That's a license.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
Yeah it does. You can demand any sort of ludicrous concession you like as an added rider to selling me that CD. You can say that I can only listen to it in the dark hopping on one foot while wearing nothing but boxers and a smile. But the only thing that makes that enforceable is a license.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
You're drinking the cool-aid if you think it's progressives leading the charge towards feudalism.
You mean "Kool-aid"? All I hear from progressives is "more government, no spending cuts, more regulation, bigger taxes", etc. No delusions at all.
Conservative economic policies are what protect the wealthy 'feudal lords' you're talking about. Their regressive tax structures make social mobility much more difficult, which is useful for keeping the wealth concentrated in as few hands as possible.
I don't know what you are talking about here. Only about half the population in the US pays income tax at all. The top 2% pay more than the bottom 95%. Corporate welfare and complicated tax incentives, breaks, and all that crazy crap isn't "conservative economic policy" - balanced budgets and smaller government that gets out of the way are what conservative policy [should] be about.
Conservative social policies...
Social authoritarians, regardless of political stripe, need to get out of the way. People own themselves and that should be respected. But the progressives want to control every aspect of everyone's life, including how much water and energy they are allowed to use, what they should eat, where they should live, etc., etc. Nice straw man there with the whole social authoritarian rant.
Conservative educational policies
Education isn't a government function - maybe you could justify some government financial support for educating the less privileged, but you're so enamored with the monopolistic state indoctrination centers all you can complain about are the religious types trying to interject their views. Really?
Please provide some sort of example of how progressive policies try to control the population to a greater extent than conservative policies...
Sure. Here you go.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
The only reason third-parties don't gain any traction is because of your lazy, defeatist attitude.
No, it's because the U.S. uses a first-past-the-post electoral system, which makes a two-party dominant system almost inevitable.
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
For the life of me I don't see why this is so hard to figure out. Sane copyright is simple. You get 5 years, free of charge to keep your work under copyright, then, once a year, you must send in $100 per year the work is past 5 years to maintain the copyright. So, the sixth year is a $100 fee, the 10th year it's $500, and so on. That lets the big companies like Disney, who don't want to see Mickey fall out of copyright saddled with big payments to keep their whole 70 year old catalog copyrighted, but it lets a simple author who wants to publish a book for 5 years to get to sell it for that length. If it still makes money after 5 years, he can pay the $100 to keep it copyrighted. Asimov would be paying about $6500 a year to keep each of the original Foundation books copyrighted, but he'd be making $50K a year on royalties, so it's worth it. On the other hand, the stuff that's only selling 20 copies a year fall to the public domain. Look, I just solved the whole argument. Simple, easy, and it pays for copyright enforcement out of the people who are paying to keep their old crap "safe."
Life, the Universe, and Everything... in my image.
As bad as the music business is today, imagine no copyrights. I write a great new song, perform it a few times while I'm working out the kinks, saving up for studio time, etc.
Yeah, think of all the music that would never have been written if Mozart or Beethoven had had to work in a world where music wasn't copyrighted!
I am officially gone from
I can imagine a world without copyright. And it's better than the one I live in now. Everything you assert the big corporations would do, they already do. The difference is that the little guy could then do it against the big corporations, leveling the playing field.
Complete abolition of patents and copyright (and mostly trademark, just keeping it around as an anti-fraud tactic only) is much much better, even under your doom and gloom worst-case scenarios, than what we have today.
Learn to love Alaska
Commenting on Slashdot makes you feel witty, but doesn't accomplish much. Write your reps, vote with your money.
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. " - Douglas Adams
No portion of this post may be rebroadcast without the express, written consent of Major League Baseball.
Term limits mean nothing. The next candidate will also play ball. They all will. They must, because if they don't, those who support "Prohibition III - Now You Are All Criminals" will finance their opponents and third party PR firms. The Citizens United ruling has opened the doors to infinite amounts of corporate money.
The only thing that could stop this - and it should have been done ten years ago - is to remove contributions to political campaigns entirely, public and private. Publicly finance campaigns. Remove the money from the system. But it may now be too late. The money is the government now, and they won't let go of power.
Additionally:
1. Repeal the laws regarding corporate personhood.
2. Pass laws stating that money does not equal free speech. Speech is speech.
3. Remove with utter prejudice the computerized voting system and use Canada's manual count system. It's useless to try to throw the rascals out if they can control the vote totals. They can and will.
Pretty soon just disagreeing with the government position will be a felony
That's the one thing I'm pretty sure they won't do. Speaking as a non-American, my observation is that Americans have it pretty much imprinted in their heads that freedom of speech equals freedom. As long as he can criticise the government, the President, the "clowns in Washington", etc, to his heart's content, it will never occur to the average American citizen that he's not free even if, say, the incarceration rate for the USA is the highest in the world by some significant margin.
And there's really no point in curtailing freedom of speech. Establishment-friendly mass media shape discourse very effectively. A person or a hundred thousand complaining their hearts out in the Internet or whatever make no difference at all.
You mean "Kool-aid"? All I hear from progressives is "more government, no spending cuts, more regulation, bigger taxes", etc. No delusions at all.
I thought you'd be more sensitive to trademark infringement in a copyright infringement thread. Seriously though, explain to me why any of those are bad things. More government is what pulled the US out of the great depression, and this is the worst economic slump since then. No spending cuts isn't a bad thing, espicially when you consider the fact that the conservative definition of "spending cuts" means "social program cuts, but absolutely no cuts to the unending torrent of cash poured into the gaping maw of the military industrial complex". More regulation would definitley be a good thing, unless you suffer from some form of brain damage that causes you to believe that the reason we're currently in an economic crisis is because wall street and the mortgage brokers were overregulated, even though there were twelve straight years of de-regulation preceding the crisis. And anyone who has ever actually analyzed the history of income taxes in this country can tell you that bigger taxes on the rich results in a healthier middle class, which is what a government that plans on existing for any extended period of time should be trying to promote.
I don't know what you are talking about here. Only about half the population in the US pays income tax at all. The top 2% pay more than the bottom 95%. Corporate welfare and complicated tax incentives, breaks, and all that crazy crap isn't "conservative economic policy" - balanced budgets and smaller government that gets out of the way are what conservative policy [should] be about.
Really, the people who control almost the entirety of the wealth in this country pay most of the taxes? That would almost be fair if it weren't for the fact that it's a complete fucking lie. http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/indtaxstats/article/0,,id=129270,00.html clearly shows to anyone who understands basic division that the top two percent, actually contribute less than 50% of the tax income recieved by the US, even they control over 80 percent of the wealth. Please try again, this time check your numbers.
Conservative social policies...
Social authoritarians, regardless of political stripe, need to get out of the way. People own themselves and that should be respected. But the progressives want to control every aspect of everyone's life, including how much water and energy they are allowed to use, what they should eat, where they should live, etc., etc. Nice straw man there with the whole social authoritarian rant.
Education isn't a government function - maybe you could justify some government financial support for educating the less privileged, but you're so enamored with the monopolistic state indoctrination centers all you can complain about are the religious types trying to interject their views. Really?
Ok, we'll just have to agree to disagree here. You can go ahead and move to some spot where you'll be under the jurisdiction of a third world despot if you want to live in a country that forsakes education of the masses for the financial benefit of the rich, because there are plenty of them out there, I'm just guessing that you wouldn't actually want to live in any of them, because they're all horribly regressive shitholes where a silly religion would be forced upon you under penalty of death. Seriously, list one nation that doesn't have state sponsored educational programs that isn't a complete fucking hellhole. You can't, because they don't exist, because only a moron would want to live in a country run by people who were so stupid they didn't understand that education is the key to success in the modern world, and that it is literally in every single country's on best interest to ma