This Week In Techdirt History: October 1st - 7th

from the stuff-that-happened dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2012, as copyright trolls continued their war on open wi-fi, rightsholders in the EU sought new storage media levies for the cloud and US ISPs were gearing up to enact their "six strikes" plan, we were trying to kill the myth that the constitution guarantees copyright. Some people at least seemed to get it, with a high-profile EU Parliament Committee proposing the ability to create non-copyrighted content, a DOJ lawyer exploring the fact that copyright needs to change in the internet age, and Psy mega-amplifying his Gangnam Style fame by allowing anyone to use the song and video for anything.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2007, it was expected and then confirmed that the RIAA would win its lawsuit against Jammie Thomas — even as we speculated that investors would soon force the RIAA to abandon its aggressive lawsuit strategy. In that trial, a Sony-BMG exec made some pretty absurd statements, around the same time that Viacom's CEO gave a speech demonstrating that the company is wrong about almost everything related to the internet and modern media, and the president of the ESA was calling for lots more DRM. But at least one group of creators was experimenting: Radiohead announced the pay-what-you-want plans for their album In Rainbows.

Fifteen Years Ago

Even back in 2001 this week, Hollywood already had its hooks in the government (and was working hard on getting them into colleges too). The music industry was heavily on the offensive and sending misguided musicians to complain to the government about downloading. As Napster creator Shawn Fanning was giving interviews about the service's demise (and even selling life story rights to MTV), the next generation of file sharing tools was starting to wonder if the "Betamax doctrine" would ever prove effective as a defense. Meanwhile, Congress was still considering an onerous and extreme DRM bill (which as we'll see in a few weeks was eventually killed, surprisingly, by.... Senator Patrick Leahy, who is more recently known for introducing a terrible copyright bill).

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Filed Under: history, look back


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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 7 Oct 2017 @ 12:42pm

    Twenty years ago

    After last week, smoothly heating it up…   It was twenty years ago, today

    Up-To-Date September 28 - October 4, 1997

    I've discovered the purpose of FAQs, since I've been receiving questions asked...frequently.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 7 Oct 2017 @ 10:17pm

      Re: Twenty years ago

      Also 20 years ago:
      Gordon Moore tells us Moore's Law runs out of steam in 2017.

      ...So 2017's almost over, what have we got?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Aaron Walkhouse (profile), 8 Oct 2017 @ 12:19am

        Clock speeds have stopped rising and we are now resorting to
        more cores, memory and storage capacities to maintain progress.
        Todays PCs and devices will be good enough for awhile. so watch
        for prices to start dropping instead.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          christenson, 8 Oct 2017 @ 9:18am

          Re: Moore's law

          Prices *have* been dropping. The Desktop PC has been adequate (and going obsolete, as it moves onto my laptop and my phone) for multiple years. Everyone is wondering what the fuss is all about with the latest iPhone.

          Now we also have the internet of insecure THINGS! lol

          Seriously, we need to turn to the fundamentals of computing: How do you secure a computation when the hardware and software is unreliable? What does security mean in the face of the total inability to keep secrets, where anyone can trivially copy anything?

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Lawrence D’Oliveiro, 10 Oct 2017 @ 5:12pm

          Re: Clock speeds have stopped rising ...

          Not that Moore’s Law ever said anything about clock speeds ...

          link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Roger Strong (profile), 8 Oct 2017 @ 11:04am

        Re: Re: Twenty years ago

        ...So 2017's almost over, what have we got?

        Synchronized chickens.

        If you're crossing the nation in a covered wagon, it's better to have four strong oxen than 100 chickens. Chickens are OK but we can't make them work together yet.

        • Ross Bott, Pyramid U.S., on multiprocessors at AUUGM '89.

        Multiple cores and multi-threaded software are now the norm. We've gotten really good at making those chickens work together.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 7 Oct 2017 @ 1:48pm

    OFF TOPIC IMPORTANT

    Evacuate SEOUL NOW.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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