Tag Archive for: Techdirt

This Week In Techdirt History: October 11th – 17th

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Five Years Ago

This week in 2015, while one judge was calling everyone’s bluffs about encryption, James Comey was insisting that “dozens” of terrorists have eluded the FBI because of it and Chuck Grassley was telling the DOJ to get back to the fight, and some were noting how just because the administration had said it wouldn’t pursue backdoors didn’t mean the next one wouldn’t change course. Plus, we noted that the lack of fervor from the NSA on the issue simply suggested that they already had a way into people’s phones. Meanwhile, the appeals court handed a clear fair use win to Google over book scanning, while the battle over the Happy Birthday copyright was gearing up for its next phase.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2010, we looked at the rapid rise of copyright shakedown operations in the US — in fact, there were so many that they were starting to fight with each other over trademarks on their very similar names and copy ceach others’ websites. Meanwhile, more countries were reacting to ACTA and Ron Wyden was seeking answers on whether it would impact US law (which independent analysis suggested it absolutely would) — but though all this was leading to some growing reluctance among US officials, we doubted that they would ever really decide not to sign the agreement.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2005, the instant messaging wars were in full swing and Microsoft and Yahoo were finally managing to provide some basic interoperability. RealNetworks and Microsoft settled their antitrust fight, more and more people were speaking up about patent trolls, and we looked at how it was the recording industry’s obsession with DRM that helped make Apple so powerful, to the industry’s chagrin.

Techdirt.

This Week In Techdirt History: October 4th – 10th

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Five Years Ago

This week in 2015, the TPP negotiators pulled an all-nighter to finish the latest draft of the agreement, though of course it still remained secret. An announcement from New Zealand, however, confirmed that it would extend copyright terms and lock-in terrible anti-circumvention rules, leading us to reiterate that it’s not a “free trade” agreement but rather a protectionist one. Then, at the end of the week, Wikileaks released the final intellectual property chapter (and it was basically as bad as expected).

Ten Years Ago

Before the TPP, it was ACTA. This week in 2010, negotiators announced that ACTA was nearly complete and that the final text would be released by the end of the week — yet somehow (shocking!) the MPAA was able to announce that it was in favor of the current text it wasn’t supposed to have seen. Many in the EU Parliament were not at all happy about the agreement, and in Mexico the Senate actually voted unanimously to remove the country from negotiations. When the text was released on Wednesday, it had shed some of the worst aspects of earlier versions but was still full of problems, and for some reason the negotiators were still obsessing about secrecy in their briefings about the now-public text.

Also, just to hammer home how long this thing’s been going on, here’s a 2010 post about some of the early blows in the fight between Oracle and Google.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2005, the Grokster decision was just one factor in the messy fight over the criminality of writing software, the USPTO was busy producing anti-piracy propaganda, and DRM-makers were espousing the importance of DRM even though, as usual, numbers suggested that file sharing is good for sales. The recording industry was demanding too much in its negotiations with tech companies and setting its sites on satellite radio as its new target, not to mention trying out new arguments against fair use. But we saw one great ruling from Australia, where the Supreme Court found that mod-chipping consoles does not violate anti-circumvention laws.

Techdirt.

This Week In Techdirt History: September 27th – October 3rd

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Five Years Ago

This week in 2015, while many sites were going to war with ad blockers, we unveiled the ability to turn off ads on Techdirt in your user settings. Various emerging info revealed sketchy behavior by the Secret Service, the State Department’s success in planting anti-Wikileaks questions in the 60 Minutes interview with Julian Assange, and the surveillance failures of the Postal Service. Rightscorp was telling its copyright-trolling targets that they need to hand their computers over to police, PETA was defending its supposed right to represent the selfie-taking monkey, and — though it seems minor compared to what’s going on right now — we talked about the increasing number of attacks on Section 230.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2010, Citibank was abusing the DMCA to try to hide its comments on Obama’s bank reform policy, a city council was claiming copyright infringement over one councilor posting meeting clips to YouTube, and the EFF was countersuing Righthaven. Meanwhile, Congress was pushing the COICA anti-infringement bill, and we took a look at all the technologies it would have blocked in the past, then all the current technology it was likely to interfere with, while Tim Berners-Lee stepped up as an opponent to the bill (and the RIAA, of course, stepped up as a hysterical supporter) — and by the end of the week, the bill was shelved.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2005, the ever-changing world of mobile phone etiquette was grappling with Bluetooth headsets while some restaurants were splitting into phone and no-phone sections. The pessimism about cameraphones was faltering as a new music video was shot entirely with a phone, and some early battles over transit map apps were popping up, while Motorola’s CEO was whining about the iPod Nano and Seagate’s CEO was making the case for hard drives over flash memory — while SanDisk made a much-anticipated announcement about flash storage that turned out to be… new copy protection technology. Professors were following in the shoes of doctors and freaking out about online reviews, Warner Music was foolishly overestimating its power in negotiations with Apple, and Sony was repeating its past ways by trying to block developers from hacking the PSP.

Techdirt.

Our Latest Techdirt Gear: I Paid More For This T-Shirt Than Trump Paid In Taxes

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We were working on some new Techdirt gear designs for our Techdirt Gear shop at Threadless (stay tuned!) when the NY Times dropped its bombshell of a story regarding President Donald Trump’s tax returns. As you likely know, despite every Presidential candidate in my lifetime releasing their tax returns, Trump has refused to do so (also, despite promises that he would). For years, reporters have sought out those taxes, and somehow the reporters at the Times got them. There were many interesting things highlighted in those tax returns, but a key point that has resonated widely: in the year Trump won the Presidency he only paid $ 750 in federal taxes (the same as he paid in many other years as well, including his first year as President in 2017).

Lots of people have been pointing out that this is crazy for all sorts of reasons, and plenty of people, including Joe Biden have jumped in with “I paid more in taxes than Donald Trump” gear. But, here at Techdirt, we believe in… going bigger. So we’re selling a “I Paid More For This T-Shirt Than Trump Paid In Taxes” t-shirt… for $ 751 (plus shipping).

This is a real shirt and you can really buy it. Whether or not it’s worth paying $ 751 for such a t-shirt is a decision that only you can make, though we’d be happy with that kind of support.

Of course, if that’s a bit too pricey for you, we do still have a lot of other more affordable gear you can pick up too, like our copyright takedown gear:

Or our 1st Emojiment gear that explains the 1st Amendment in emoji.

And many other designs and products (not just t-shirts, we’ve got face masks, mugs and notebooks among many other items as well). So shop around, and feel free to spend more supporting us than the President has spent supporting the United States of America.

Techdirt.