This Week In Techdirt History: September 10th - 16th

from the stuff-that-happened dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2012, we were watching as the House of Representatives got ready to move forward with extending the FISA Amendments Act despite huge problems and a worrying lack of information about secret interpretations of the law. Of course, it quickly passed — basically thanks to lots of lying and misrepresentation about what the bill actually contained. Meanwhile, having failed to get new cybersecurity legislation passed, the White House was looking to tackle the issue with an executive order, the draft text of which was leaked at the end of the week. Of course, we were also worried about efforts to make cybersecurity enforcement the job of the ITU, an idea with a whole host of problems of its own.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2007, we were appalled at (and slightly amused by) the pathetic attempts at "innovation" on display in the legacy recording industry, such as the hype around the "ringle" — a combination of a single and a ringtone! Imagine that! Similarly, Universal Music seemed to have gotten the message that subscription services are a good idea, but gotten the details of the implementation entirely wrong. It was also around this time that we started to hear complaints from sound engineers and audiophiles about iPods and earbuds destroying the sound quality of music — though perhaps that was just a way to get press, much like blaming Facebook for destroying the economy. Meanwhile, Prince, unpredictable as always, decided to sue eBay, YouTube and The Pirate Bay for copyright infringement.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2002, the bizarre blanket ban on video games we mentioned last week quickly started to fail in the courts, the battle between China's censors and Google heated up then fizzled out, and a well-known AP writer joined the ranks of people totally misunderstanding the digital music debate. The music industry was doing its best to paint Kazaa and Morpheus as infringers, while Morpheus was seeking summary judgement saying it doesn't violate copyright law. And one on-the-money essay explained how the industry was killing the goose that lays the golden eggs by trying to destroy digital music.

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Filed Under: history, look back