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A Look Back In Techdirt History

from the going-back,-back,-back... dept

Sat, Mar 22nd 2014 12:00pm — Mike Masnick

We're trying something new this week. I realized last week that we'd actually hit the 15th anniversary of the very first Techdirt blog post. The site had existed for nearly two years before that, but was mainly done as an email newsletter. Back in March of 1999, the word "blog" still didn't even exist until a few months later (though "weblog" had been around for a little while before that) and didn't really catch on for a couple years. Anyway, given 15 years of blog posts, I thought it might be fun to look back at what we were writing about five, ten and fifteen years ago.

Five years ago:

Really not too much different, honestly. Believe it or not, we were talking about how the NSA and Keith Alexander were trying to increase their ability to do dragnet surveillance by pretending that it was all about "cybersecurity." Some things never change. We were also talking about how corporate lobbyists from the entertainment, pharma and tech industries had too much influence over a trade agreement (in that case, it was the early days of ACTA). And, of course, we were talking about business models and copyright issues. We wrote about how musician Jill Sobule had successfully crowdfunded an album -- back in the days when crowdfunding was new (this was actually a month before Kickstarter was founded). We also wrote about the FBI getting a big chunk of money to go after copyright infringement. And, finally, we had a story about how U2's Bono said he was upset about piracy, but didn't want to speak out too much, since he was so wealthy.

Ten years ago:

Going back ten years, we see some things are still the same, while others are quite different. On the similar front, we've got stories of the MPAA ghostwriting letters for state attorneys general to send to makers of various P2P software to scare them into shutting down, as well as pushing for a bizarre law in California that would require anyone who sent "professional" audiovisual content over the internet to include their name and address with the file. Hollywood never stops playing these kinds of games. We also wrote about fears that Comcast might destroy the internet -- believe it or not, over a different proposed merger (Disney) at the time. And there were the beginnings of people recognizing just how truly awful patent trolls were.

But not everything was the same. People were just beginning to realize that streaming music might be a thing, and that it would lead some people to no longer value "owning" a music file. Camera phones were still a new thing and many stories were about how scary and awful they were -- so we were amazed to actually finally see a positive story about how a cameraphone stopped a crime.

Fifteen years ago:

These were the early days of Techdirt as a blog, and our posts were a lot shorter at the time. This was the middle of the original dotcom bubble, so there was some discussion about dot com IPOs, along with news of AOL laying off Netscape employees. We were amazed at how much companies were charging for early MP3 players. Oh, and we figured that the whole Y2K scare was likely overhyped.

There were some stories that still fit with our general coverage today, including a quick post disagreeing with Mark Cuban's view at the time that MP3s would die out to proprietary formats (and that free content would go away). We had a post about the big virtual currency of the time, called Beenz, which many people still compare Bitcoin to today. We discussed a silly trademark dispute between a software company and a beer company. We wrote about fears that CD-R's would increase piracy and... how then ~~Senator~~ Vice President and soon-to-be Presidential candidate Al Gore was pushing for antitrust penalties against Microsoft in a cynical attempt to drive tech companies to contribute to his campaign.

Some things just never change... Anyway, let us know what you think about these "look back in history" posts...

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Filed Under: archives, look back

23 Comments

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Rikuo (profile), 22 Mar 2014 @ 11:32am

Wow, looking back through those articles now. Everything seems so...quaint...in comparison, especially this article
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/990318/154215.shtml
which mentions a PDA that has, as part of its marketing campaign "a colour screen and the ability to play back MP3s". It seems ridiculous to us in the year 2014 to say "Buy our gadget! It has a a colour screen and can play MP3s!" because it's now standard fare for pretty much every mobile gadget to have them. No doubt in 15-20 years, we'll be rocking smartphones with Geforce GTX Titan level graphics capabilities and terabytes of onboard storage.
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- Rikuo (profile), 22 Mar 2014 @ 11:45am
  
  Re:
  OMG, I think I found your very first troll Mike! (although he didn't post that until seven years after the article was posted, so there could be trolls who commented between these two dates)
  https://www.techdirt.com/articles/990323/1640238.shtml
  If I had had internet access at the time you posted that article (and had read Dune, I didn't until a few years later) I would have posted Dune's famous quote "Thou Shalt Not Make a Machine in the Likeness of a Human Mind"
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  - Anonymous Coward, 22 Mar 2014 @ 1:58pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Wasn't there a regular troll that posted under something like boilerplate bob or something 10 years ago?
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    - Mike Masnick (profile), 22 Mar 2014 @ 6:11pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Wasn't there a regular troll that posted under something like boilerplate bob or something 10 years ago?
      
      The first major "troll" we had went by the name "dorpus." He was around for a few years... guessing 2004 - 2007 or so, but I don't remember exactly.
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      - Anonymous Coward, 24 Mar 2014 @ 6:46am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        I miss dorpus and angry dude
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  - justok (profile), 22 Mar 2014 @ 3:07pm
    
    Re: Re:
    The trolls WRITE the articles around here.
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    - martyburns (profile), 22 Mar 2014 @ 4:56pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Clearly not exclusively..
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      - btrussell (profile), 22 Mar 2014 @ 5:52pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Indubitably.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Mar 2014 @ 2:02pm

Speaking of looking back Mike, how about you doing a story about the wayback machines, its getting harder and harder to use it with all the retroactive blocking by domain squatters. All of that that thanks to the insane copyright policies the internet archive follows.
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- Anonymous Coward, 22 Mar 2014 @ 3:51pm
  
  Re:
  No kidding. A recent post on Techdirt about a game developer's veiled legal threats against critics of his games ended up with a a couple of Internet Archive links being ordered down by that developer's lawyers (the content was the subject of a defamation lawsuit, which was resolved in a settlement). The Internet Archive could have claimed immunity under the CDA, but it chose instead to shut down the link.
  
  What good is an archive when content can be removed from it so easily?
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- Alan, 24 Mar 2014 @ 10:33am
  
  Re:
  It would be great to get some insight into this. I noticed it a few years ago when a site with lots of tips and projects went down. I thought no prob that should be in the archive and it wasn't. Years of woodworking, metal, electrical projects and tips gone.
  
  I think it was workshop.ca or something
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Mar 2014 @ 2:25pm

Al Gore was not "then Senator and soon-to-be Presidential candidate". He was then VP and soon-to-be Presidential candidate.
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- Mike Masnick (profile), 22 Mar 2014 @ 6:09pm
  
  Re:
  Al Gore was not "then Senator and soon-to-be Presidential candidate". He was then VP and soon-to-be Presidential candidate.
  
  Duh. That was a dumb mistake. Fixed. Thanks...
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tracyanne (profile), 22 Mar 2014 @ 2:59pm

15 years reading this blog
I suddenly feel incredibly old
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zip, 22 Mar 2014 @ 6:06pm

staying power
Perhaps the best thing about Techdirt is that the site has remained online and active for so long. The vast majority of blogs and personal websites seem to go dead within a few years, so a 15 year anniversary is indeed quite a rarity.

One change I've noticed is that Mike does not respond to comments (trolls or otherwise) nearly as much as he used to. But that's the pattern of most bloggers, it seems -- and to no surprise.

And regarding Archive.org, the typical situation I've seen is that after a site owner decides to finally give it up, the domain is bought by someone else (whether a squatter or actual user) who puts up a robots.txt, which causes every saved page on Archive.org, often going back many years, to disappear instantly. (let's hope that never happens with techdirt)

So Happy Anniversary, Techdirt. Now let's break out the champagne!
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btrussell (profile), 22 Mar 2014 @ 6:10pm

"Music has become tap water..."
Bono

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/for+a+song

Sorry Boner, been that way a long time. The only difference is, I need water, although I filter it too.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2014 @ 3:38am

it just now hit me that i have been reading techdirt since the early 2000s. it is rare to find a site that has been around this long without becoming an ad dump with bullshit posts. not only that, but techdirt has actually grown and become even more recognized. i love you guys.
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- Rikuo (profile), 23 Mar 2014 @ 3:55am
  
  Re:
  *glomps*
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Sebastian Kessler (profile), 23 Mar 2014 @ 5:13am

Congrats
Fri, Mar 12th 1999. Woaw that's a lot of time.
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Parker Mason (profile), 24 Mar 2014 @ 7:18am

not a fan
I've been a longtime fan of Techdirt, and wish you congratulations on 15 years of solid blogging, but I'm really not a fan of these "look back" posts. Maybe on a monthly basis, they're okay. But on a daily basis? No thanks.

I come to Techdirt for great writing and good insights on new developments, not to look back at the good old days. Live in the now and the future, not the past.
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- nasch (profile), 24 Mar 2014 @ 9:35am
  
  Re: not a fan
  I'm really not a fan of these "look back" posts. Maybe on a monthly basis, they're okay. But on a daily basis? No thanks.
  
  If TD has been posting these look back posts every day I have been missing it. Are you talking about the best comments of the week posts, or favorite TD posts of the week?
  
  Scientific American features summaries of some stories they ran 50, 100 and 150 years ago and I find it fascinating. Personally rather than somebody's favorite TD posts of the week I would rather see something about what TD posted 5, 10, and 15 years ago that week.
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  - mudlock (profile), 24 Mar 2014 @ 2:35pm
    
    Re: Re: not a fan
    I LOVE this idea.
    
    But yes, daily is too often. How about weekly? On the weekend, when nothing's going on.
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- Mike Masnick (profile), 25 Mar 2014 @ 12:25am
  
  Re: not a fan
  But on a daily basis? No thanks.
  
  Huh? Never planned to do them daily. We're thinking once a week as a weekend post.
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