This Week In Techdirt History: January 26th - February 1st

from the prior-events dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2015, the Charlie Hebdo attack had the UK reviving interest in its "Snooper's Charter", while we learned about how the feds went to Google to snoop on the emails of Wikileaks journalists — and gagged Google after the backlash to their similar warrants against Twitter. Justice Sotomayor was calling out the DOJ for devaluing the 4th Amendment, the EU's counterterrorism coordinator finally openly said they want to force internet companies to hand over crypto keys, and China's government was getting in on the crypto-wars too — all while a privacy board review of the NSA noted that the agency doesn't know or care how effective its surveillance programs are.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2010, there were still those in the music business who believed the impossible was possible, and wanted all piracy stopped, while we noted the irony of ACTA supporters speaking out against internet-oppressive regimes, the unintended consequences of three strikes programs were cropping up more and more (as we pointed out that three strikes won't save thee recording industry), and Jammie Thomas was rejecting a settlement offer from the RIAA. And another copyright case joined the insane-damages-parade when the plaintiff was awarded $51-million over a satellite cracking app. Lord Mandelson was trying to make the UK's kick-folks-off-the-net plan even worse by making them pay to appeal decisions. But at least some folks, like Brian Eno, could see where things were going in the music industry — though others were getting a little over-optimistic about how Apple's upcoming tablet would save publishing.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2005, the government was getting involved in IBM's sale of its PC division over fears of Chinese industrial espionage. The EU was grappling over software patents while RIM was dealing with a patent lawsuit by being Canadian. There were more questions of liability regarding online posts, Microsoft decided to withhold Windows security updates from those with unauthorized copies, and the MPAA was being extremely magnanimous and doing everyone a gigantic favor by offering to give them software that would scan their machines for infringing files.

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Filed Under: history, look back