Tag Archive for: 20th

This Week In Techdirt History: October 14th – 20th

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Five Years Ago

There was plenty of NSA apologia again this week in 2013. Keith Alexander was claiming that he was protecting civil liberties by violating them and playing the fear card by claiming people will die due to the Snowden leaks, while the lawyer who helped give legal cover to Bush’s warrantless wiretapping was claiming everyone will grow to love the intrusive NSA, and Dianne Feinstein was playing the 9/11 card (and being debunked by the ACLU).

Meanwhile, the latest information from the leaks revealed that the NSA was collecting email contact lists and instant messaging friend lists overseas with no oversight, that the agency was involved in the drone strike program, and of course that the agency was in fact drowning in a glut of data.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2008, the president finally signed the ProIP bill and created America’s copyright czar position. We took a closer look at the MPAA’s lawsuit against RealNetworks (and how it was all about controlling innovation), while the RIAA was appealing the mistrial ruling in the Jammie Thomas trial, and a German court was finding Google Images thumbnails to be a copyright violation. Unexpectedly, the McCain campaign sent a letter to YouTube urging them to consider and protect fair use when processing DMCA requests, and YouTube offered up the excellent response that they can’t give the campaign special treatment, but they hope McCain will fix the law. Meanwhile, Larry Lessig was giving his own impassioned defense of fair use and remix culture.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2003, the EFF found another person who was wrongly accused of file-sharing and sued by the RIAA (they wouldn’t be the last), just as the RIAA was commencing round two of its shakedown scheme by, as promised, offering people a chance to pay up before being sued (how nice of them). We also took a closer look at the RIAA’s lawsuits against Grokster and Morpheus, and how their true ambitious goal was to overturn the Betamax precedent that makes video tape machines legal. Also this week, Brewster Kahle was fighting against the DMCA in an attempt to preserve old software.

Meanwhile, lots of companies and industries were really struggling to adapt. Some people were discussing possible futures for usual-consumer-electronics-leader Sony after Apple beat it to the punch on smartphones, print publishers were basically dragging their heels about this whole internet thing, and Polaroid reached the highly questionable conclusion that its future was in digital photo kiosks.

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T-Mobile experienced a data breach on August 20th

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  1. T-Mobile experienced a data breach on August 20th  TmoNews

  2. T-Mobile data breach affects two million customers in the US  Compelo
  3. Breach exposed details of 2 million T-Mobile US customers – report  The Register

    4. Full coverage

data breach – read more

This Week In Techdirt History: January 14th – 20th

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Five Years Ago

This week in 2013, we were shook by the sad news of Aaron Swartz’s death. Through the week, we looked at the actions of prosecutors and investigators and the fact that in the US “anyone interesting is a felon”, and at all the other crimes that would have resulted in less jail time than Swartz was facing. But we also looked at what we should learn from him moving forward, about how to build up instead of tearing down, and how “content” can’t be the end-game of knowledge, and we watched as researchers posted their work online for free in tribute.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2008, while NBC Universal was arguing in favor of ISP filtering and copy protection tech, the recording industry was kinda-sorta getting over its obsession with DRM — and moving to other stupid ideas like digital watermarks and annoying anti-piracy voiceovers on review copies instead. The DMCA was being abused to go after bad reviews, the EFF was making the argument that “making available” is not infringement, and J.K. Rowling was trying to block a third-party Harry Potter guidebook — and amidst this we noted that it seems like most people don’t actually know what copyright is for.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2003, some people thought it looked like Hollywood’s copyright control was loosening a little, but we weren’t so optimistic. Indeed, that very week the Supreme Court upheld retroactive copyright extension in the Eldred ruling despite Lawrence Lessig’s best efforts (though there was potentially some silver lining). The music and tech industries announced a rather worrying policy agreement that would see the latter stop fighting for user rights in exchange for the former dropping its calls for mandatory hardware-level DRM, though the agreement ended up being largely meaningless and, of course, was completely spurned by the MPAA. Meanwhile those movie studios were being strangled by their own IP obsession while trying to navigate the licensing thicket to get older movies online.

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