This Week In Techdirt History: December 17th - 23rd

from the advent-calendar dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2012, the MPAA was claiming that millions of DMCA takedowns are proof that Google needs to magically stop piracy, while the RIAA was trying to rewrite the history of copyright, and the BPI was threatening to personally sue the leaders of the UK pirate party. But the intellectual property diplomats at the US State Department were moaning about how they can't export strict copyright laws as easily as they'd like to, since for every country like the UK (where London police were setting up a special force of copyright cops), there was one like Australia (which was refusing to play Hollywood's game). Then, of course, at the end of that same week, the administration's shortlist for new ambassador appointments included a bunch of big Hollywood donors.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2007, it was sports organizations taking the lead in the copyright fight, realizing they could (ab)use it to try to stifle press coverage, and clamp down on those dastardly live-bloggers. The IFPI went after Alibaba for linking to downloadable music, while the Korean government was paying out $170 million to publishers to mollify them after copyright extensions hurt their businesses. Amidst all this, we were pointing out that "balance" in copyright is a myth and a red herring, and it's time to get off of our unhealthy addiction to intellectual property.

Fifteen Years Ago

Not much different this week in 2002, with the RIAA amping up its extremely dubious claims with extremely dubious math and Hollywood fighting to ban DVD-copying software — while more and more people began to realize that copyright was enabling widespread censorship (not to mention undermining cybersecurity). But, there was a noteworthy light in the darkness! It was this week, about a year after the initial announcement, that Creative Commons was officially launched and began its ongoing project to change the way we think about copyright, content and sharing.

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Filed Under: history, look back


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  1. This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2017 @ 2:11pm

    How mightily convenient of you to close for a holiday that most of you don't even celebrate without first writing even ONE paragraph about Eric Shmidt's highly SUSPICIOUS and SUDDEN resignation.... gee whiz.... "what a surprise".....

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2017 @ 3:09pm

    Re:

    Someone resigned. So what?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. icon
    Stephen T. Stone (profile), 22 Dec 2017 @ 4:10pm

    Re:

    What do you want them to say right now that cannot be said in a few days? Have some patience, damn.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2017 @ 4:50pm

    Re: Re:

    Someone's just angry that Techdirt wrote an article about Chris Dodd leaving the MPAA...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2017 @ 5:48pm

    "How mightily convenient of you to close for a holiday that most of you don't even celebrate without first writing even ONE paragraph about Eric Shmidt's highly SUSPICIOUS and SUDDEN resignation.... gee whiz.... "what a surprise"....."

    Par for the course around here. If it has to do with something insidious at Google, they're gonna do one thing or another to Spackle it over, and/or minimize the nature of it.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2017 @ 5:50pm

    Re: Re:

    At a bare minimum, something that didn't take days to craft with the aid of lawyers.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Lawrence D’Oliveiro, 22 Dec 2017 @ 6:15pm

    Re: If it has to do with something insidious at Google, they're gonna do one thing or another to Spackle it over ...

    Liberal media, or conservative memory?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. icon
    Stephen T. Stone (profile), 23 Dec 2017 @ 5:20am

    Re: Re: Re:

    I can't wait for you to cite the proof that whatever post Techdirt writes on the matter was crafted over the Christmas holiday with the aid of a cadre of lawyers.

    No, really, I can't wait. Cite your proof or GTFO.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 24 Dec 2017 @ 10:50pm

    Re:

    Notably lacking in your garbage post, proof.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 26 Dec 2017 @ 6:54pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    I don't have to offer you a goddamn thing, because as you can see, TechDirt has still not mentioned one word about it. Not one goddamn word.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 26 Dec 2017 @ 6:54pm

    Re:

    "How mightily convenient of you to close for a holiday that most of you don't even celebrate without first writing even ONE paragraph about Eric Shmidt's highly SUSPICIOUS and SUDDEN resignation.... gee whiz.... "what a surprise"....."

    Par for the course around here. If it has to do with something insidious at Google, they're gonna do one thing or another to Spackle it over, and/or minimize the nature of it.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 26 Dec 2017 @ 7:02pm

    Re: Re: If it has to do with something insidious at Google, they're gonna do one thing or another to Spackle it over ...

    As you can see, still not one word about it, so you can shut your goddamn piehole. Btw, when TechDirt writes an article about Google doing things wrong, they do so like this...

    GOOGLE HAS BEEN A BAD DOG.

    Google has been a bad dog... however you must consider they are dealing with this and that and the other and when you look at it from that retarded vector, they are not really "that" bad of a dog, now are they? In fact, they are merely victim of circumstances....

    "Presto" "Unbiased" "reporting" "from" """TechDirt"""

    link to this | view in thread ]

  13. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 26 Dec 2017 @ 7:04pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    At a bare minimum, something that didn't take days to craft with the aid of lawyers.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  14. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 26 Dec 2017 @ 7:07pm

    Re: Re:

    It is now common knowledge the Eric the Shithead has resigned, and there is no speculation as to why: Being a womanizer, pure and simple. Stepping down and having money will not keep him from getting corn-holed in prison.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  15. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 30 Dec 2017 @ 7:07pm

    Re: Re:

    And yet every time copyright enforcement broke the laws they were supposed to uphold you will scream "Anomaly!" and deep-throat them up the ivory tower in your head.

    Get over yourself. You're bitching on a website you yourself admit is insignificant. If that was the case you wouldn't be here.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  16. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 30 Dec 2017 @ 7:17pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    And? If Schmidt decides to sue women to muzzle their testimony like Harvey Weinstein did you might expect an article. Womanizing has nothing to do with surveillance, phishing, data farming, piracy, or the other topics Techdirt usually writes about.

    If you want to celebrate the downfall of Google because one man was a pervert, good for you, lots of websites talk about it. This country is run by a self-declared womanizer. You see him sharing a cell with Bubba any time soon?

    link to this | view in thread ]


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