This Week In Techdirt History: May 10th - 16th
from the week-by-week dept
Five Years Ago
This week in 2015, the backlash was coming in to the appeals court ruling that put a dent in NSA surveillance, with politicians crying foul in response as they hoped to spy on more Americans, while the EFF saw the ruling as reason enough to withdraw its support for the now-worse USA Freedom Act — which nevertheless overwhelmingly passed the Housea big fight in the Senate. Meanwhile, a new "he forgot about it" excuse appeared regarding James Clapper's lies, while the government was showing off its inconsistent treatment of leakers and whistleblowers.
Ten Years Ago
This week in 2010, music publishers were still trying to squeeze cash out of lyrics websites, the RIAA successfully got a court to rule that LimeWire was guilty of contributory infringement, and the producers of The Hurt Locker were gearing up for their infamous barrage of copyright lawsuits. A brief in the Viacom/YouTube trial tried to rewrite the DMCA, while Brazil rejected the idea of its own DMCA-style notice-and-takedown system.
This was also the week that the freshly-launched "Humble Indie Games Bundle" was blowing up the charts (I actually missed the launch of the bundle the previous week, because we covered it with such a low-key headline when it still wasn't clear how big a deal it would become). By the end of the week it had hit a million sales and it was starting to become clear that it was a big deal, though few might have guessed it would still be going strong today.
Fifteen Years Ago
This week in 2005, the Senate passed the Iraq appropriations bill that also had a tacked-on problem in the form of the Real ID Act, which looked likely to end up making identity theft easier, and immediately became the target of brewing legal challenges. Following the FCC's recent rejection of the broadcast flag the previous week, the MPAA was looking to legislate it back into existence, while a minor ruling in the Napster investment lawsuit included an important detail about what qualifies as "distribution" for copyright purposes. And it was starting to look like there might be a little resistance among federal agencies to the idea of being Hollywood's personal copyright cops.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Nobody gives a fuck about this shitty website.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
What about Obamagate?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
What was the crime?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Obama claiming WMD's aren't real and the terror networks were collapsing is pretty good way to obstruct justice.
I am not a blame obama person because it obviously wasn't obama's fault.
Trump claiming Obama spied on Trump seems like BS.
There is a kind of lack of reality based thinking among certain groups of people. They claim because a government claims the activity it isn't terrorism, and then if you closely look at their laws they're doing an unapproved insurrection, rebellion, or are a stateless group stripped of all lawful authority within their government like nazis are. (real nazis who do real nazi experimentation and crimes against humanity, not someone with an offensive symbol) Those sanctions are supposed to be in our law but don't get applied well enough to solve the current situation.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Tell the truth - you’re a slanty eyed China man.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Shiva Ayyadurai didn't invent email, Hamilton.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Leaking is a FEDERAL CRIME!
But you knew that already.
Obama! Obamanabie!
You! Are you Obama? You stink like him.
You pause way too long, just like him.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]