This Week In Techdirt History: November 19th - 25th

from the happy-thanksgiving! dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2012, we saw a lot of interesting documents related to copyright. First, there was the excellent report from Derek Khanna at the Republican Study Committee, which was quickly retracted by the party (but that wouldn't be the last we'd hear from Khanna — and we continued to look closely at the report). Next, there was the newly available English translation of a Polish copyright study that, it turned out, had been critical to the growth of the ACTA opposition. Finally, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University was getting ready to publish a book about the need for copyright reform — just as rightsholders were co-opting the "reform" language for their own purposes.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2007, we got the opinions of presidential candidates on copyright through the lens of an incredibly slanted survey clearly aimed at promoting stronger laws, while a much better and more interesting report was highlighting just how much casual infringement everyone commits every day (rendering copyright law largely obsolete). While music retailers were begging the recording industry to cut it out with the DRM and the MPAA was defending its assault on universities, the writer's strike was highlighting just how many new competitors Hollywood has online. Meanwhile, a company was claiming to offer "open-source DRM", which we noted is either not open source, or not DRM.

Fifteen Years Ago

The more things change, the more they sound exactly like they did in 2001 — like concerns about the uptick in fake, doctored photos being spread online, and tech companies asking the FCC not to filter the internet. On the copyright front, some were of course trying to claim that DRM can save the entertainment industry while Microsoft was realizing that it's a futile endeavor. We also pointed to an early article discussing something that would become a common point here at Techdirt: copyright is about user rights, not an analogy for property. Meanwhile, though it started as a small and curious experiment, it was becoming apparent that Google and Amazon's newfangled "web services" offerings might change the face of the web as we know it.

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Filed Under: history, look back


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  1. identicon
    Lawrence D’Oliveiro, 24 Nov 2017 @ 7:04pm

    Apropos The (In)Famous Microsoft “Darknet” Paper ...

    ... Ars Technica have republished their article from five years ago celebrating the tenth anniversary of the paper.

    Has anything happened since then to render it obsolete? Answers on a postcard, please...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    icon
    hyphenitis (profile), 25 Nov 2017 @ 6:29am

    Russian meddling (a.k.a. interference).  Russian meddling. Said it again just in case you missed it the first time.  It has been repeated like a mantra at least 24 times a day on NPR over the past year.  It is the meddling meme® & it needs desperately to be retired.  But CIA has no way to get rid of it.  Without it, they can't sustain their little propaganda war on Putin.  So we're stuck with it in perpetuum.  The meddling meme® is just a part of our (Orwellian) vocabulary now.  Thanks, MSM.

    & how is the investigation into that massively botched Vegas operation coming along?  Did that silly old man, Padlock, really fire all those big guns in one go?  Wait, there's a news blackout, ye say?  Impossible.  That can't happen here.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2017 @ 7:21am

    Re:

    "Russian meddling"

    This is so fucking sickening.

    Everyone, like not a single fucking major power in the world is is not un-involved at some level in every nation, not just America's politics.

    The media community flagrantly ignores all of the "money" from big foreign interests but are hyper focused on little groups of peeps on forums posting messages.

    Just like how terrorism can be used to get you to shut your fucking yap and bend over for your proctology exam at the TSA when you fly, the media wants to use "its the russians" as an excuse to silence online voices.

    "The meddling meme® is just a part of our (Orwellian) vocabulary now. Thanks, MSM."

    This is so on fucking target!

    MSM, government, and big interests have had a firm grip on the news cycle for a good long time. The Hollywood dam holding back that sick fucking cesspool is proof of that.

    People that think they can trust anything big media of any kind says are fools. Reminds me of the Faux News crowd bitching out the lies of one news network while sucking on the dickish lies of the others.

    People need to start learning to read between the lines, they are getting rolling like the bitches they are! Orwell might as well have been a prophet. People are going to pretty much ensure that bad things and "big brother" happens in their pursuits to stop them.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. icon
    Roger Strong (profile), 25 Nov 2017 @ 8:08am

    Re:

    Perhaps we can respond to the next hurricane the same way. Just refuse to repeat the hurricane meme®. Don't make it part of your (Orwellian) vocabulary. Do the same for earthquakes, cancer and whatnot.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2017 @ 8:18am

    Re: Re:

    Obvious Troll...

    not what they said or implied.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Lawrence D’Oliveiro, 25 Nov 2017 @ 1:00pm

    Re: Without it, they can't sustain their little propaganda war on Putin.

    Crimea is part of Russia. Crimea has always been part of Russia.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. icon
    Roger Strong (profile), 25 Nov 2017 @ 1:52pm

    Re: Re: Without it, they can't sustain their little propaganda war on Putin.

    "We are war with Eastasia. We have always been at war with Eastasia."

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2017 @ 2:23pm

    Re: Re: Without it, they can't sustain their little propaganda war on Putin.

    You may want to reconsider your statement that Crimea has always been part of Russia. Ukraine will certainly disagree.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2017 @ 2:41pm

    Re: Apropos The (In)Famous Microsoft “Darknet” Paper ...

    Ars Technica have republished

    From the Ars Technica article—

    “Teenagers and twenty-somethings I know routinely will go over to a friend's house with a terabyte drive to swap stuff,” he [Peter Biddle, the paper's lead author] said.

    Now, recalling the textbook(*) admonition—

    (1 TB × 60 mph) / (2/3 × c) ≈ 130 KiB/s

     

     


    (*) According to Wikiquote, the textbook is: Tanenbaum, Andrew S., Computer Networks 3rd ed., p.83, which paraphrases Dr. Warren Jackson.

    Yes. I did actually purchase my copy of the textbook for the course. But these days, it's packed in a box somewhere.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    Lawrence D’Oliveiro, 25 Nov 2017 @ 3:14pm

    Re: Tanenbaum’s “Computer Networks”

    Now there’s a useful text. I have the second, third and fourth editions on a shelf just behind me, and I did borrow the first edition to read at one point. Seeing how the arrangement of the content differed over time gave you a view into the relative importance of various topics at corresponding points in the history of the field. For example, all the stuff on graph theory in the first edition which largely disappeared after that: all the talk of Java in the third edition, which was gone in the fourth in favour of encryption, and so on.

    I think AST is a much more credible source of information on networks than he is on operating systems.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2017 @ 9:39pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    And how is the weather in St Petersburg today comrade? Also it’s considered bad manners to reply to oneself.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 26 Nov 2017 @ 6:45am

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    link to this | view in thread ]

  13. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 26 Nov 2017 @ 11:02am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Why don’t you look out a window and tell us instead comrade?

    link to this | view in thread ]


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