This Week In Techdirt History: December 22nd - 28th

from the then-and-now dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, NSA mega-defender Mike Rigers took a moment on his way out of congress to attack Obama for not launching a pre-emptive cyberwar with North Korea, while a retired official launched a bizarre lawsuit against Edward Snowden and Laura Poitras "on behalf of the American people". We were also unsurprised to learn that a CIA-appointed panel determined there was nothing wrong with the CIA spying on the Senate.

Meanwhile, Sony was still lashing out against people sharing the documents leaked in the big hack, first demanding a Twitter user remove posts then stepping it up and threatening to sue Twitter itself. While this was going on, more digging through the documents confirmed that the MPAA's $80-million settlement with Hotfile was about appearances, not money.

Ten Years Ago

A brief world tour of this week in 2009: China was raising the Great Firewall even higher with claims about fighting piracy, the Australian Domain authority was shutting down sites critical of internet filters, Argentina was extending its copyright terms, a Hungarian copyright maximalist called those who oppose anti-circumvention laws "hate-driven" and "Maoist", Italian courts were continuing to attack YouTube at every opportunity, the Vancouver Olympics in Canada was making even-more-insane-than-usual intellectual property demands, and the Vatican created a special new copyright-like right on everything related to the Pope. On the more positive side, Chile rejected an attempt to force ISPs to filter and block copyrighted works, and at least one Lord in the UK was fighting to include something good in the Digital Economy Bill.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, the recording industry was getting creatively evil in attempting to freeze money donated to the Red Cross because it came from the company that operated Kazaa. The CEO of India's eBay affiliate was arrested because people sold pornographic material on the site, ComScore was trying to invent a new category of "researchware" to avoid its tools being called spyware, the Washington Post bought Slate, and some courts that installed WiFi networks were suddenly shocked by the fact that people were using them. Blockbuster was continuing to try to prop itself up, following its recent elimination of late fees with a big price drop for its subscription service. And at a time when it was popular to panic about kids using "text speak" and forgetting how to write properly, one study showed that they are perfectly capable of doing both.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: December 15th - 21st

from the remember? dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, the world was reeling from a major hack of Sony and a trove of documents it exposed. While the company was trying to put the genie back in the bottle (even being accused of engaging in DDoS attacks), the documents were revealing the MPAA's relationwhip with Attorneys General, especially Mississippi's Jim Hood in his investigations Google — soon followed by more evidence, then even more, prompting Google to file a challenge against Hood's subpoenas. We also learned more about the MPAA's ongoing desire for SOPA-style site blocking and its secret plan to break the internet by reinterpreting the DMCA. By the end of the week, the FBI had formally accused North Korea of being responsible for the hack.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, Microsoft made one of the most infuriating DRM screw-ups when Office 2003 started locking people out of their own documents, Blu-Ray was trying to implement a silly managed copy DRM, and Apple and various other companies were making it almost impossible to publish an audiobook without DRM. A woman who was arrested for filming snippets of New Moon was considering suing the theater, ASCAP was demanding licenses from venues that let people play Guitar Hero, and the FBI did its duty as Hollywood's police force and arrested the person who leaked Wolverine online. Meanwhile, Joe Biden convened a "piracy summit" that was completely one-sided, full of copyright maximalists complaining about theft, where reporters were kicked out so everyone could schmooze in peace. Congress also earmarked another $30-million to fight piracy, but we were at least somewhat pleasantly surprised when the White House actually came out in favor of copyright exemptions for the visually impaired.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, TiVo was still king of the DVR world, and started lashing out to protect its trademark in some questionable ways, while Blockbuster was trying to forestall its death at the hands of Netflix by doing away with late fees. A lawsuit was filed with the argument that software should not be copyrightable, the MPAA decided to start going after BitTorrent trackers, and SonyBMG was once again celebrating new DRM for CDs. And in Canada, a court overturned the country's tax on MP3 players, though we suspected that would just set the stage for new and even worse legislative changes.

Filed Under: history, look back

Verizon Is Undermining Efforts To Archive Yahoo Groups...For No Coherent Reason

from the ill-communication dept

Verizon's often sad efforts to pivot from curmudgeonly old telco to sexy new Millennial advertising giant have not gone as the company had hoped. From the failure of its Go90 streaming service to its clumsy effort to turn AOL and Yahoo into a Facebook-killing ad empire, Verizon often can't get out of Verizon's way. The "consumer comes last" executive mindset of the government-pampered telecom monopoly is frequently reflected by its policies, like Verizon's decision to acquire Tumblr, ban one of the most compelling aspects of the service (adult content and art), then turn around and sell it at a massive loss.

When archivists attempted to try and preserve a lot of the adult-themed art that Verizon was jettisoning, Verizon responded by banning archivist IP ranges for no coherent reason. Much like Facebook, Verizon positively adores looking at a controversial situation, then coming up with the worst possible policy and PR response. You know, like that time they hired a fake journalist to pretend the company wasn't trying to kill net neutrality.

Another case in point. Back in October, Verizon and Yahoo informed users of Yahoo Groups that the 20 year community would be shut down coming this December 14. Archivists set about trying to catalog and store the decades of conversations, images, and content on the platform. But Verizon being Verizon, those archivists now say the company is actively undermining their efforts, including banning Archive Team email addresses being used to archive content, and actively blocking tools used for the same purpose:

"Yahoo banned all the email addresses that the Archive Team volunteers had been using to join Yahoo Groups in order to download data. Verizon has also made it impossible for the Archive Team to continue using semi-automated scripts to join Yahoo Groups – which means each group must be re-joined one by one, an impossible task (redo the work of the past 4 weeks over the next 10 days).

On top of that, something Yahoo did has killed the last third party tool that users and owners have been using to access their messages, photos and files. (PGOlffine).. Note: not everyone who paid for the PGOffline license is being impacted by the problem. but the developer does not have a workaround."

Under Section 230 Verizon faces no liability for the content shared on the platform, and there's no valid reason for them to be fighting back against archival efforts. Yet here we are. Verizon didn't respond to several requests for comment, so it's hard to understand what the telco is thinking, if it's thinking at all. I spoke briefly to Archive Team co-founder Jason Scott and Cory Doctorow, both of whom were than impressed by the company's tone deafness:

"What they are doing is burning 20 years of history and archives maintained by communities with a non-functioning system for backing them up," he said. “They made no real preparations for users to pull the information out because companies like Yahoo! were never designed to allow information to leave their walled gardens."

“This is 20 years of communities, discussion and artifacts from millions of groups, all representing learned information, legal and historical references, and naturally, the conversations of tens of millions of users,” Scott said. “Some of it is likely worthless and some of it is likely precious. It is all being treated like trash."

It's one thing for Verizon to shutter the platform. It's another for Verizon to actively block harmless efforts to preserve 20 years of internet history ahead of the shutdown. But being a government pampered monopoly in a largely non competitive market has left Verizon ill-prepared to actually listen to the communities it impacts (especially when there's no money to be made by doing so), a major reason Verizon's pivot from telco to new media ad darling hasn't quite gone according to plan.

Updated: After Verizon's behavior resulted in some unwanted media attention, the company has finally changed its stance. It now tells me it has extended the deadline for the Yahoo Groups shut down to Friday, January 31, 2020 at 11:59pm PST.

Filed Under: archives, blocks, digital history, groups, history, yahoo groups
Companies: archive team, internet archive, verizon, yahoo

This Week In Techdirt History: November 24th - 30th

from the thanks-for-the-memories dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, the war on encryption continued with the NSA Director fearmongering about a pending cyberattack, backed up by a misinformed WSJ op-ed, as we looked at how encryption back doors could harm intelligence gathering and military operations. The net neutrality attacks were also coming strong, with a misleading poll propping up the partisan divide, CenturyLink defending its lobbying for protectionist state laws, and Mark Cuban jumping on the bandwagon despite apparently not understanding what net neutrality is. Meanwhile, Nielsen finally caught up to reality and started trying to track streaming viewers after years of denying the existence of cord-cutting.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, while the heads of major movie studios were claiming that they just wanted to help indie filmmakers with their anti-piracy demands, others were seeing that movie piracy is largely the studios' fault (inasmuch as it's a problem at all) and new research was continuing to show how copying and imitation is good for society. Senators were beginning to question the secrecy of the ACTA negotiations, and we were noticing the inconsistency between companies' support for ACTA and support for a treaty providing more access to content for the visually impaired.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, we were wondering (with some perhaps-undue optimism...) whether the entertainment industry was losing its political power. BT was trying to get in on the extremely crowded music download store market, Radiohead was disappointingly charging fees for quoting its music even in clear cases of fair use, and one judge was thankfully telling the MPAA to slow down with the John Doe lawsuits. Meanwhile, UK drivers were ignoring driving-while-yakking laws just like everyone else, people were twisting the results of a study showing the educational benefits of computers to their phone ringing, and the problem of patent hoarding was getting enough attention to even show up in USA Today.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the so-it-went dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, the incoming head of the House Intelligence Committee was... Devin Nunes, talking about how surveillance reform is unnecessary — though former CIA/NSA Director Michael Hayden was saying that only ISIS would benefit from the proposed USA Freedom Act, and a defense official was telling the intelligence community to grow up and stop blaming Ed Snowden, and a former NSA executive was claiming he challenged bulk phone records collection but was rebuffed. The USA Freedom Act did fail to pass the Senate this week, but for stupid reasons.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, old-school journalists were busy getting mad about the internet, while clinging to things like optimistic studies where people say they'd pay for online news. The MPAA and Sony Pictures were backing down after shutting down a town's wifi over a single movie download the previous week, but the MPAA was still waging war on DVRs and being joined by the cable industry, while Sony Pictures announced its best box office year ever only a month after the CEO was moaning about piracy killing the movie business. Really, what holds back online entertainment business models was mainly legacy entertainment companies making it impossible for them to survive. But the copyright maximalists were pleased about how things were going in the UK, with Peter Mandelson proposing sweeping powers in the much-anticipated Digital Economy Bill aka copyright industry wish-list.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, Wilco's Jeff Tweedy emerged as an early example of a musician who understood the internet, and we took a bigger look at why user generated content should change how we view copyright. The MPAA officially moved ahead with its plan to follow in the RIAA's footsteps by suing a bunch of John Doe file-sharers, and Hollywood was just getting started on the anti-DVR war that would continue for years by trying to have commercial skipping deemed illegal (and of all people, it was John McCain who recognized just how ridiculous this was). Meanwhile, Steve Ballmer made some FUD waves with his claim that anyone who uses Linux will be sued for patent infringement — which was quickly rebuffed by the author of the study he said the idea was based on.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: November 10th - 16th

from the do-you-recall dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, the amicus briefs were rolling in on Google's first attempt to get SCOTUS to hear the Oracle case. We were surprised when Obama called for real net neutrality, and not so surprised when the broadband industry and T-Mobile's CEO and the rest of the anti-net-neutrality brigade freaked out in response. Meanwhile, Techdirt got dragged into the Roca Labs affair when Roca bizarrely sued Marc Randazza largely over a post we wrote, just before it began issuing bogus DMCA notices to Google over PissedConsumer reviews. This was also the week we launched the Techdirt podcast.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, a Danish anti-piracy group was withdrawing all its lawsuits against individuals after it lost most of them, though this just spurred the IFPI to say it would start seizing computers to get more evidence. The UK was moving towards forcing ISPs to retain user data and kicking people off the internet, while Rupert Murdoch was audaciously claiming that fair use could be struck down entirely by the courts, and we took a look at how a lot of Murdoch's own websites contained aggregators just like the ones he was so angry about. Verizon started passing on RIAA letters to users, the MPAA got a town's public wi-fi shut down over one single unauthorized movie download, and we looked closer at Bluebeat's bizarre "psycho-acoustic simulation" copyright claim on Beatles songs.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, Monster Cable was establishing its reputation as a trademark monster, Blockbuster was making the questionable decision to buy more stores, and the entertainment industry just couldn't quite give up on self-destructing DVDs. The deluge of video ads on the web was just beginning, though it probably wasn't yet quite as annoying as AOL's very stupid TV commercials. The notion of selling instead of going public was becoming mainstream for tech startups, and Google's not-so-revolutionary IPO was not kickstarting the Dutch Auction trend many people expected. And lastly, this was the week Firefox officially hit version 1.0.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: November 3rd - 9th

from the looking-back dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, while congress was gearing up to push a dangerous cybersecurity bill and one court was telling the DOJ that "state secrets" isn't a magic wand, we were hoping an important lawsuit about NSA surveillance would go forward despite the nutty plaintiff. A former NSA lawyer was hilariously warning Google and Apple that Blackberry failed because of 'too much encryption', while James Comey was just angrily demanding backdoor keys, and in the UK the GCHQ was straight-up blaming the tech industry for facilitating murder.

Ten Years Ago

This very same week in 2009, the Obama administration was playing the "state secrets" card in a warrantless wiretapping case, not long after promising to change its state secret practices. Meanwhile, the MPAA was telling the FCC that file sharing would kill the internet, hot on the heels of getting 60 Minutes to air a full show of unalloyed MPAA propaganda about piracy — even as yet more studies were showing file sharers buy more media (just like how DVRs were helping, not hurting, TV) and attacks on file sharing just drive people further underground. But the latest leaks showed the copyright folks were planning on getting their way in one place: ACTA, which was looking like an entertainment industry wishlist.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, long before today's concerns about social media and politics, the big question was if political spam could influence elections. The MPAA was in the news too, foolishly following in the RIAA's footsteps and suing 200 file sharers — while DVRs were just starting to truly catch on. Phones were transforming tech with voicemail on the way out in favour of SMS and camera phone photos showing up on the front pages of newspapers. And the broadband providers were still fighting their vicious fight to ensure municipal broadband never happens.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: October 27th - November 2nd

from the once-upon-a-time dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, while the EU Court of Justice was ruling that embedding is not infringing in a decision sure to infuriate copyright maximalists, Europe's new Digital Commissioner was on the other side of the coin exploring the idea of an EU-wide Google tax, and Spain passed a new copyright law demanding payment for snippets and links. The MPAA was freaking out over the short-lived appearance of Google Glass by banning the technology outright with an announcement hilariously referencing their "long history of welcoming technological advances", and one pizzeria was pushing trademark insanity to the limits by trying to trademark the signature flavor of its pizza. Meanwhile, Verizon was continuing its fight against net neutrality by launching its own tech blog with an editorial policy banning any mention of the subject, as well as that of government surveillance.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, we were disappointed to see DMCA abuse by NPR and silly trademark bullying by SPARC, while not especially surprised to see Amazon fighting hard for its infamous one-click buying patent after it was rejected in Canada, or to see Warner Bros. shutting down a not-for-profit Harry Potter-themed dinner organized by a fan. The RIAA was on board with net neutrality as long as it exempted ISPs blocking file-sharers, an Italian politician was trying to file charges against nearly 5,000 YouTube commenters, Japanese prosecutors were still going after the developer of a file-sharing program, and an entertainment industry lawyer filed a criminal copyright complaint against Google in Germany. This was also the week that GeoCities officially went offline, and we had one headline that is especially amusing to see today: Netflix Claims Americans Don't Want Standalone Streaming Movie Service.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, more people were continuing to realize that DRM sucks, while DirecTV was realizing that satellite internet sucks, and a former RIAA boss was suddenly magically realizing that Creative Commons doesn't actually suck as much as she thought. The recording industry in Australia was going after the operator of a directory of MP3 download sites, a strange effort by a Spanish company to offer supposedly-legal MP3 downloads ended with a settlement with the RIAA, and one court got things right when it said Lexmark was abusing the DMCA with its circumvention lawsuit over competing ink cartridges. We also saw a couple companies get badly confused: Rolex (the up-and-coming favorite brand for spammers) managed to send a cease-and-desist to a mailing list archive because it received fake Rolex spam, and Nintendo had to apologize after it rushed to threaten the SuicideGirls website over a model's profile that listed some Nintendo titles among her favorite video games.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: October 20th - 26th

from the tis-written dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, scrutiny was ramping up on former NSA boss Keith Alexander from all directions, while evidence continued to emerge further linking the NSA's SIGINT director to private contractors. Rep. Mike Rogers was calling for Ed Snowden to be charged with murder, and a former agency official was saying anyone who "justified" Snowden's leaks shouldn't be allowed to work for the government. We learned more about the CIA's spying on the Senate, while Congress was not so easily giving in to the FBI's demands about ending encryption, and amidst all this... more research showed mass surveillance doesn't work.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, the copyright lobby was bumping up against proposed anti-spam laws because they might interfere with their DRM and spyware practices, copyright holders were going to war with univeristy photocopy shops, and the US Chamber of Commerce began its DMCA-fight with prank group The Yes Men. We learned that Shepard Fairey made some bad decisions in his copyright fight with the AP over his famous Obama poster, but also wondered whether anyone could trust the AP's own reporting on the subject. And we saw trademark shenanigans from both the usual suspects (Monster Energy) and some more surprising ones (The Sex Pistols).

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, people were looking to the future of mobile devices — especially with cheap wifi on the rise — and examining everything from what makes mobile bullying unique to the coming consequences of device convergence and the possibility of peer-to-peer bartering becoming a dominant form of commerce. One prediction certainly didn't come true: a Finnish researcher extrapolated some trends and decided that the internet would collapse in 2006. Meanwhile, the RIAA's own figures were painting a different picture about file sharing from the one the agency liked to tout, web publishers were maybe-kinda-sorta coming to terms with BugMeNot, and some news websites were getting over their silly aversion to linking to other news outlets in their own coverage.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: October 13th - 19th

from the still-not-in-space dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, while Edward Snowden was telling a reporter that he probably wouldn't have revealed as much as reporters did from his documents (which was part of the point of passing the decision on people not immersed in the NSA), new releases from said documents gave us a look at the NSA's infiltration of foreign tech companies with undercover agents. The agency also finally released Keith Alexander's financial disclosure documents (with none of the ensuing security breaches they were so insistent this would cause). And we looked at some numbers painting a picture of just how aggressive the Obama administration was with leakers.

Meanwhile, we also got a look at a big leaked chunk of the in-progress TPP agreement. Most of it was the IP chapter that read like a pharma company wish list that would be a disaster for public health, and included plenty of surveillance gifts for Hollywood, plus a tidy little measure allowing the criminilization of corporate whistleblowers.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, while the IOC was complaining about Flickr photos because a photographer used a CC license, a Dutch collection society was backing down slightly on its attacks on video embeds — but highlighting the difficult question of when a small blog becomes "commercial". This question came up in an entirely different context in New York this week as well, when someone lost their unemployment benefits because their blog ads paid around a dollar a day.

Also this week in 2009: the AP and News Corp were demanding to be paid for content (and the latter was launching a news aggregator while complaining about news aggregators), ASCAP and BMI were looking for even more onerous royalties, DRM was contributing to a disastrous launch for the PSO Go, EMI signed a deal with Grooveshark thanks to negotiation through lawsuit, and yet amidst all this... the Nobel Prize in economics went for a second time to work that highlights the power of infinite goods.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, people were starting to realize (and argue about) how mobile phones extend people's capabilities while changing their skillsets. Amidst the hype about mobile TV, few companies seemed to realize that the real future of mobile video was communication and user-created content, much like how the real challenge and opportunity for news online was how much people want to share it. Interest in downloadable music stores was fading as the launch promotions dried up, the DOJ was practically begging to become Hollywood's private police force, and the Supreme Court passed on considering the RIAA's attempts to get the names of file sharers from ISPs at the same time as a UK court was ordering ISPs to hand them over. Meanwhile, hot on the heels of the Virgin Galactic announcement the previous week, potential amateur astronauts were showing up with the ticket price in hand and, at the time, it looked like private space tourism might only be a few years away.

Filed Under: history, look back