This Week In Techdirt History: March 22nd - 28th
from the back-to-the-past dept
Five Years Ago
This week in 2015, while AT&T was changing its story on Title II classification when it protected AT&T, the first legal challenges to net neutrality rules were filed, and the State of Tennessee was fighting the FCC to be able to block muni-broadband. We got a look at the extremely concerning rules in the leaked corporate sovereignty portion of the TPP agreement, and learned more about how the USTR bullied other countries into extending copyright, while the copyright industry was still pushing for stricter rules in Australia. On the brighter side, copyright troll Perfect 10 was ordered to pay $5.6 million over a bogus lawsuit.
Ten Years Ago
This week in 2010, Viacom was using its legal battle with YouTube to brazenly pretend the DMCA requires proactive filtering, while Hollywood was still parroting made up facts about piracy that the AP happily parroted, and one lawyer in a criminal copyright trial was pushing back on casual use of the term "piracy", on the basis that it's prejudicial. We learned that the ACTA agreement was set to cover not just copyright and trademarks, but seven areas of intellectual property, while EU negotiators continued to insist it would move forward and there was nothing to worry about — though reports from the field suggested that negotiations weren't going so well. The full ACTA draft was leaked midway through the week, and it was full of all the troubling stuff we expected and more, raising serious constitutional questions.
Fifteen Years Ago
In 2005, there was still an idea floating around that you could cause an explosion by using a mobile phone at the gas pump, which Mythbusters dispelled this week. List spam was on the rise while classic spam was apparently still working, and phishing was looking unnecessary given how easily people would give up personal info. And screensavers were still a thing — and a vector for malware.
We were watching the actions of newly-minted MPAA boss Dan Glickman, and his big idea seemed to be just telling people not to tape movies and, bafflingly, to make the movie industry more like the IRS. But at least he had the help of the FBI, which was ramping up its role as Hollywood's private enforcer.
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This week in Techdirt history, Michael Slonecker was troubled that pharmaceutical companies might be at slightly increased risk of having their expensive patents delegitimized. He thus decided that the best course of action was to be mean to mean ol' Mike Masnick.
He chose poorly.
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This week in 2020 leaves Americans stranded in India with no way out, shops closing and no way to buy food or medicine, and have had hotel shut downs, and been met by suspicion for being coronavirus carriers, which they are not.
One woman is an Amazon employee. Pretty sure that Jeff Besoz has a plane or knows someone that can get these Americans out of India. One woman has no kidney medication and she and her physician husband are worried that their child will be left in New York without care for remaining in India longer than planned. The tourists have notified the U.S. embassy in India and were instructed to follow STEP procedures and have, but have had no return correspondence from STEP or anyone else!
Please help these U.S. citizens!
This was reported today in Yahoo News.
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The photograph in this article featuring Rudi Giuliani and Hillary Clinton on September 12th 2001 in a blast from the past, both walking around ground zero with surgical masks during the last faked terrorist attack on U.S. soil that led to mass surveillance and the rise of fascism, permanent war, permanent economic fraud, and permanent bail-outs is rather comical in a synical way with Giuliani looking smitten with himself for successfully playing a leading role on the biggest con on the American people in history, and Hillary rolling har eyes, averting her eyes from him and the photographer with an expression like, "I can't beleive that people are falling for this fucking bullshit! I can't beleive that I have to go along with this fucking bullshit! Get me the hell out of here!"
https://news.yahoo.com/the-mistakes-that-turned-new-york-into-an-epicenter-of-the-corona virus-epidemic-090040375.html
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Re:
What is taking place with the coronavirus in America by the Medical Mafia is nothing short of national terrorism! These are psychopaths that have obviously colluded to be mentally incompetent until all of the demands that they are seeking have been fulfilled while we are all held hostage, they don't give a damn about life at all and should not be rewarded for their fascist terrorism!
It is not possble to believe that all of these long established companies were incapable of developing an accurate test kit! Did terrorists sabotage the test kits, or was this deliberate incompetency used to create a national emergency until all of their greedy and power grab demands have been met?!
The Medical Mafia currently commits $700 billion to $925 billion of medical fraud a year and medical error is the third leading cause of death in America.
The Medical Mafia had its feelings hurt for being sued by state and local governments for the opioid crisis which they had created and was enabled by the FDA and congress.
We have been held hostage by fascist psychopaths!
Death to the fascists!
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It is time for average Americans to ask, " What can American, federal, state, local governments, corporations, and the Federal Reserve do for me?"
Sorry, but being held hostages and having our rights destroyed and a check for $1,200 isn't enough!
No corporate or financial bailouts! Already $6.5 trillion on the table! Give every American a check for $20,000 instead!
Let Freedom Ring once again! Death to the criminal fascists! All fascists are anti-American! All fascists are guilty of treason and high crimes!
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Hey I heard all the gun shops are going to reopen this week. THANKFUL to POTUS big time!
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Re:
I understand that the next covid relief bill from congress will include an AK-47 and a 60 round clip FREE for every American who will swear allegiance to America, the constitution, and Donald J. Trump, the magnificent.
AND a free presidential pardon if you have to shoot a socialist because they’re so irritating and want to argue about the meaning of words. Or for pretty much ANY reasonable justification.
Sounds great, no? Next week, that’s what I heard.
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Your fantasies about murdering people you consider to be Repugnant Cultural Others should have you placed on a watchlist for potentially violent political extremists.
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Re:
Yup, you’re at the top of the “did I leave one in the chamber?” test.
You’re triggered, right? I know. I wrote the book.
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I’m not “triggered” because I don’t have PTSD. I’m more disturbed at how easily you devolve into threats of violence and murder based on political ideology. You’re no better than the whackjob who shot at Republican lawmakers on a baseball field.
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Re:
Of all the personas they could have chosen to run with 'deranged would-be-murderer' is certainly a telling one of the person behind the keyboard, but I suppose it fits right in with the rest of the deplorable character traits they display.
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Re: Re:
Seems you like the idea of an AK-47..
Seems you are a bit Russian in what you like..
So how many rubles do you get paid for working in a troll-factory?
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Re: Re:
So, you support the government giving you "free" stuff (a.k.a. socialism), so that you can kill socialists?
To think, all that we "evil socialists" here have been asking for is for people to have affordable medicare and a living wage, yet all it takes for you to become a socialist is the promise of being able to murder people. Yet, you deny you have mental issues that require proper medication...
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Re: Re:
[Asserts facts not in evidence]
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Even though exercise is considered essential, the instigators at the Milwaukee Police Department are getting antsy and uncomfortable with everyone abiding by the law, denying the MPD their need to abuse people and will issue a statement. They miss arresting people. They get off on throwing their weight around.
https://www.tmj4.com/news/coronavirus/local-and-state-officials-warn-social-distancing-viola tions-could-result-in-arrests
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Australian Copyright Law
If anybody's interested, Australia got site blocking laws put in place which were so easily defeated as to not exist, other than causing a few minutes irritance whilst changing DNS settings.
Although, about the only positive thing I can report, is that, under the same changes to copyright law, anything previously officially unplublished (even if widely available) was under perpetual copyright, but that was ammended, effective 1st January 2919, freeing up many documents and photographs from Australia's first ~150 years.
The fact that this section of the law existed in the first place really shows how messed up the concept of copyright is to some politicians!
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