Tag Archive for: 28th

This Week In Techdirt History: December 22nd – 28th

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Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, NSA mega-defender Mike Rigers took a moment on his way out of congress to attack Obama for not launching a pre-emptive cyberwar with North Korea, while a retired official launched a bizarre lawsuit against Edward Snowden and Laura Poitras “on behalf of the American people”. We were also unsurprised to learn that a CIA-appointed panel determined there was nothing wrong with the CIA spying on the Senate.

Meanwhile, Sony was still lashing out against people sharing the documents leaked in the big hack, first demanding a Twitter user remove posts then stepping it up and threatening to sue Twitter itself. While this was going on, more digging through the documents confirmed that the MPAA’s $ 80-million settlement with Hotfile was about appearances, not money.

Ten Years Ago

A brief world tour of this week in 2009: China was raising the Great Firewall even higher with claims about fighting piracy, the Australian Domain authority was shutting down sites critical of internet filters, Argentina was extending its copyright terms, a Hungarian copyright maximalist called those who oppose anti-circumvention laws “hate-driven” and “Maoist”, Italian courts were continuing to attack YouTube at every opportunity, the Vancouver Olympics in Canada was making even-more-insane-than-usual intellectual property demands, and the Vatican created a special new copyright-like right on everything related to the Pope. On the more positive side, Chile rejected an attempt to force ISPs to filter and block copyrighted works, and at least one Lord in the UK was fighting to include something good in the Digital Economy Bill.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, the recording industry was getting creatively evil in attempting to freeze money donated to the Red Cross because it came from the company that operated Kazaa. The CEO of India’s eBay affiliate was arrested because people sold pornographic material on the site, ComScore was trying to invent a new category of “researchware” to avoid its tools being called spyware, the Washington Post bought Slate, and some courts that installed WiFi networks were suddenly shocked by the fact that people were using them. Blockbuster was continuing to try to prop itself up, following its recent elimination of late fees with a big price drop for its subscription service. And at a time when it was popular to panic about kids using “text speak” and forgetting how to write properly, one study showed that they are perfectly capable of doing both.

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This Week In Techdirt History: July 28th – August 3rd

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Five Years Ago

This week in 2014 was one of significant events around the CIA. First, it was reported that the agency was intercepting confidential whistleblower communications sent to the Senate, which led to angry denials followed in short order by an admission and apology — while also revealing that the spying on the Senate went even further than the report showed. At the same time as all this, the CIA torture report was winding its way towards release. Some leaked details revealed that State Department officials knew about the torture and were instructed not to tell their bosses, and then the White House passed on its redacted version to the Senate — leading Dianne Feinstein to ask why so much of the report was redacted and delay its release. Then, at the end of the week, President Obama addressed the issue with the disturbingly casual statement that “we tortured some folks”.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, there was no surprise when the court rejected Joel Tenenbaum’s highly questionable fair use defense for file sharing, capping off the general trainwreck of his defense, and ending with Tenenbaum being ordered to pay $ 22,500 per song, for a total of $ 675,000. Meanwhile, the Associated Press was sick enough of people mocking its plans to DRM the news that it said it’s done talking about fair use, though perhaps a more important question was whether the AP was still relevant at all. This was somewhat mirrored in Barnes & Noble’s bizarre response to questions about why it put DRM on public domain books.

Also this week in 2009: Taser dropped its misguided lawsuit against Second Life, we saw what appears to be the first defamation lawsuit over a tweet, and Apple was fighting to prevent a DMCA exception for jailbreaking iPhones — not a great look in the same week it blocked Google Voice from the iPhone and sparked an FCC investigation.

Fifteen Years Ago

Five years earlier in 2004, before the iPhone existed (but with people including us already using the term to describe a hypothetical device we all suspected was coming), Apple made news by putting a slimmed down version of iTunes on a Motorola phone, though we couldn’t help but wonder if carriers would kill it due to their own walled-garden mentality. Not that Apple would deserve much sympathy since, that same week, RealNetworks engineered a way for people to put their Real music onto iPods only for Apple to act indignant and accuse them of “adopting the tactics and ethics of a hacker”. Meanwhile, Google was moving towards its hotly anticipated IPO when it got hit by the MyDoom virus and taken offline for several hours (which may have only served to make people realize just how much they use it).

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This Week In Techdirt History: July 22nd – 28th

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Five Years Ago

This week in 2013, the congressional backlash against the NSA kicked into high gear with an amendment to end phone data collection from Rep. Justin Amash. Naturally the NSA’s defenders flipped out, Obama opposed the amendment by insulting congress, and Keith Alexander called an emergency briefing to lobby against it. After a heated debate, the amendment narrowly failed thanks to “no” votes from 217 representatives — including several democrats led by Nancy Pelosi because, hey, you might be in communication with terrorists, right?

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2008, we saw the first legal battle specifically over whether people sending DMCA notices must consider fair use, while the IFPI was taking down music that the creators wanted up, the MPAA was spouting doubletalk in its war against DVRs, and Viacom had to apologize for sending a bogus DMCA notice to YouTube after promising not to. Amidst all this, we saw the introduction of the Senate bill to create a copyright czar position (which Victoria Espinel would end up filling).

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2003, the RIAA’s lawsuit dragnet was sweeping up bewildered parents and grandparents. Some folks claimed there were protests in response, but this seemed pretty dubious — except online where some sites were blocking RIAA and MPAA IP addresses (Techdirt declined to participate, preferring they have access to our arguments against them). Meanwhile, movie studios got ready to launch a series of file-sharing guilt trip ads, a Spanish lawyer began following the RIAA lawsuit model, and software company SCO made the staggering claim that all Linux users are pirates.

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This Week In Techdirt History: April 22nd – 28th

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Five Years Ago

This week in 2013, while Prenda was facing new court orders and getting angry (but still trying to pull its same old tricks, we also saw lots of DMCA and copyright abuse all over the place. Fox managed to take down Cory Doctorow’s book about censorship with a bogus DMCA notice, a copyright troll was suing over the wrong movie, and Google’s problematic handling of DMCA requests led to a bad takedown being even worse. There were a couple victories too, though, such as an appeals court overturning the verdict denying Richard Prince’s fair use defence of his appropriation art, and a court rejecting a dentist’s attempt to use copyright to censor negative reviews.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2008, an AT&T lobbyist was soothsaying about the supposed dire future of broadband capacity, Cablevision was caught blatantly lying to customers about the switch to digital TV, and Bill Gates was making some simply bizarre claims about open source software. News companies were considering hitting back against MLB’s attempts to restrict reporters, while ABC was trying to do a similar thing by restricting coverage of the presidential debates. And Neil Gaiman was weighing in on J. K. Rowling’s ongoing copyright crusade against a Harry Potter guidebook.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2003, the DOJ was stepping up to take the RIAA’s side in its fight against Verizon, and a district court got on board and ruled in the RIAA’s favor, while Penn State was succumbing to the industry’s demands to help it crack down on student filesharing, and a whole bunch of record labels decided to sue the venture capitalists who backed Napster. We also got a look at the budding friendship between Hollywood and the FBI. In more positive news for the history of copyright, though, this was the week that Creative Commons went global.

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