This Week In Techdirt History: June 23rd - 29th

from the now-and-then dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, the DOJ finally released its memo explaining its justification for extra-judicial drone strikes on American citizens, after a court firmly rejected attempts to bury it — and it was still full of ridiculous redactions and even pointed to a different still-secret memo. Meanwhile, the CIA was getting closer to releasing its torture report, while also being hit with lawsuits over its resistance to FOIA requests.

We also saw some good and some bad from the Supreme Court, with a ruling that law enforcement does need a warrant to search mobile phones, but also its infamous ruling against Aereo — which was quickly seized upon by Fox, even as Hollywood's own press was able to see the problems.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, the RIAA was defending the huge award in the Jammie Thomas trial while artists like Moby and even one of the musicians whose work Thomas supposedly shared were speaking out against it. The Swedish appeals court found that there was no bias in the Pirate Bay verdict and denied a retrial, while a German politician defected for the Pirate Party in protest of his party's support for an internet blacklist, and the recording industry was suing to force Irish ISPs to implement three-strikes programs (while Spain was rejecting a three-strikes proposal).

Fifteen Years Ago

More rapid change was on the horizon this week in 2004 as the web started to replace the library stacks as the best place to do research and folks were warming up to the idea of ditching their landlines for their mobile phones. Jack Valenti was trying to simultaneously deny and defend his infamous anti-VCR stance by rewriting history, Tiffany was suing eBay for not policing counterfeit items, the instant messaging wars were still raging with Yahoo again deciding to block the multi-platform IM app Trillian, SpaceShipOne officially made it to space for the first time (though not quite with the requirements to win the X-Prize), and domain speculators were gearing up for the election by buying all the Presidential candidate domain names they could think of.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: June 16th - 22nd

from the it-was-what-it-was dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, it was becoming increasingly clear that the government had no idea how to solve a problem like Snowden, and we all got to see more details about things like the NSA's aggressive language about data collection, its gamification of spying, and the fact that it was accessing insane amounts of data directly from overseas cables. But some progress was made as the House overwhelmingly voted to take away one of the NSA's spying tools, even as the administration declined to take an easy opportunity to end bulk phone data collection immediately.

Meanwhile, police in London made the hilarious claim that "The Tor" is 90% of the internet, the feud between John Oliver and Tom Wheeler moved into its second phase, Techdirt received its first right to be forgotten request, Prenda Law was hit with $12,000 in sanctions, and an appeals court ruled unequivocally that yes, Sherlock Holmes is in the public domain.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, while one media analyst was calling Hulu "anti-Ameircan" for providing free content, and Blu-Ray was rolling out the ability to make inconvenient DRM-laden copies of discs, the recording industry was tying itself in knots in its fight for the Performance Rights act: arguing against the idea that digital radio is different from terrestrial despite that being an idea the RIAA itself originally promulgated, and calling for an FCC investigation of radio stations that were refusing to play songs from musicians who supported the Act, even though their whole argument is that all this unpaid airplay constitutes piracy. But they got a big win in the ill-advised Jammie Thomas case, with Thomas ordered to pay a shocking $1.92 million by the jury — an insane number that raised big constitutional questions was of course quickly defended by all the usual RIAA mouthpieces.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, the big trend for online newspapers was the silly notion of registration walls, but at least that wasn't quite as insane as their plan to get in on the music download store trend. People were still having all sorts of reactions to the spread of mobile phones, from the irritation with hearing private conversations to the standard fear about kids accessing porn and even in some places giving serious credence to fears about wireless signals causing illness. Perhaps the craziest example was in Ireland, where the government wanted to create a registry of all 3G phone buyers in case some turned out to be child pornographers.

Meanwhile, the MPAA was trying to come up with strained legal reasons that file sharing systems should be investigated, Universal's vaunted price-drop for CDs was not going so smoothly, DirecTV stopped attempting to extort people who had purchased smart card readers in what seemed to be the result of EFF pressure but turned out to likely have been because of a forthcoming court order, and Cory Doctorow — in a fight that he sadly must continue (but thankfully does continue) to this day — made a thorough and impassioned argument against DRM to Microsoft.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: June 9th - 15th

from the then-and-now dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, James Clapper finally admitted that the number of documents Ed Snowden took was probably a lot less than the much-bandied 1.7-million figure, while various former intelligence officials were not happy about Clapper's gag order on talking to the press. A new report examined the reactions to the Snowden leaks from governments around the world, and we noted one big positive result was companies being less ready to help the NSA. But agency defenders were still telling lots of lies, Mike Rogers was calling Google unpatriotic for opposing spying on its users, and we awaited a key vote in congress that would reveal how much it valued people's privacy.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, the Swedish Pirate Party surprised everyone by winning a seat in the EU parliament for Christian Engstrom, who used the attention to explain the party (and its name) to an often-confused press. Amidst the push for fashion copyright some smart designers were realizing it would be a bad thing, Bad Science's Ben Goldacre tore apart a bogus study about file sharing, and a UK ISP boss was trying to explain to the industry that it needs to give up on trying to stop all piracy. In France, the consitutional council gutted the recently-passed three strikes program, video game companies were still whining about used game sales, and we saw the beginning of another notoriously silly copyright dust-up when an Australian music publisher claimed Down Under by Men At Work was a copy of the children's song Kookaburra.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, people were cluing into the huge learning benefits for kids who use computers — and the fact that over-obsession with "internet risks" can undermine these benefits. We took a look at how being prevented from using a cellphone sparks extreme anger in some, but is embraced as a nice break by others. Television was trying to figure out how to embrace and/or compete with broadband, while the RIAA was complaining that digital broadcasts would make radio too high-quality, and that would be bad. And after a brief flurry of trading with some people shelling out hundreds of dollars for the hyped new email service, Gmail invites flooded the market and tanked the price.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: June 2nd - 8th

from the total-recall dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, newly released documents outlined the NSA's interception of millions of images every day to fill a facial recognition database, leading James Clapper to defend the program by denying claims nobody actually made. The EFF complained to a court about the NSA's destruction of evidence, leading to an admission from the DOJ and a new restraining order from the court — which they convinced the court to overturn. Meanwhile, we took a broader look at surveillance in the post-Snowden world, and a big group of tech companies were pressuring the NSA to end bulk surveillance.

This was also the week that John Oliver famously rebranded Net Neutrality as Preventing Cable Company Fuckery, leading to a deluge of submissions that crashed the FCC's public comment page. It didn't stop one congressional representative from releasing an anti-net-neutrality bill full of laughable claims, though.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, the UK was making its entry in the bogus piracy statistics hall of fame, recording industry propaganda was making its way to Australia, another group of copyright defenders was found to be plagiarizing material, a Spanish court ruled that personal file sharing is legal, and a band that was held up as an example of harm in the prosecution of The Pirate Bay released its new album on The Pirate Bay. Attempts to get "three strikes" regimes in place were struggling, with no ISPs signed on to the RIAA's voluntary plan after six months, and the UK government turning down a recommendation for an official three strikes scheme. One former RIAA boss, at least, was able to admit that record labels screwed a lot of things up as technology evolved.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, the buzz around Gmail was making people begin to realize that it might be the beginning of an online storage revolution. New important technologies of various kinds were being discussed and early-adopted, from two-factor authentication to 64-bit computing... and also CD copy protection. The war against spam was a stalemate at best, with the new CAN SPAM act mostly impacting legitimate email marketers but not flagrant spammers, but at least anti-spam technology was ripe for patenting I suppose. And we took an early look at the long disclaimers many people continue to tack onto their work emails, noting the fairly obvious fact that they couldn't possibly be binding.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: May 26th - June 1st

from the twas-ever-thus dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, there was a back-and-forth between Ed Snowden and the NSA, starting with the former explaining in an interview how he tried to raise concerns internally through the "proper channels". James Clapper responded by publishing an email from Snowden that was not about his concerns as counterevidence, but Snowden insisted that was not the only email and, more importantly, explained why that's missing the point anyway.

Meanwhile, one former official was excoriating Snowden for making other countries angry, Bruce Schneier was suggesting that the leaks actually help with the cracking of terrorist encryption, the White House itself accidentally revealed the identity of a top CIA spy in Afghanistan and... the House of Representatives happily reauthorized intelligence community funding with no new oversight, whistleblower protections, or anything else.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, a Canadian nonprofit released a deceptive report calling for stronger copyright laws that turned out to be largely plagiarized, eventually leading to three reports being recalled. The BSA would have been on their side though I'm sure, since it was also painting a grim picture of Canadian piracy based mostly on hunches. In Sweden, the judge who was to determine whether the original judge in the Pirate Bay trial was biased was himself removed for bias — and this wasn't even the last twist of the week, as Sweden's cultural minister then apparently fell afoul of local laws about commenting on ongoing litigation by saying she supported the original ruling. Meanwhile, the EFF was trying to counter the RIAA's propaganda in schools, the CEO of Sony Pictures was standing by his belief that there's nothing good about the internet at all, and a guy amusingly sued Guinness when it made him the world record holder for most lawsuits filed.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, the RIAA was adding another sympathetic and apparently innocent target to the list of people it harassed for money with legal threats, while it was also taking a cue from the MPAA and demanding a broadcast flag for digital radio. Clear Channel bought up a patent on selling instant recordings of live shows and started shaking down bands, while record labels were betting it all on ringtones while jacking up the price (great plan). There were, of course, plenty of legal download sites around by now. Over 100 in fact. Some might say too many.

We also heard one of the earliest rumblings of an innovation that today seems... well, not exactly mundane, because I personally still find Google Street View to be pretty incredible, but much more common than it did in 2004, when it was hard to envision it as more than a specialty product for certain industries: a company planning to drive around in a camera-laden van and map everything with photos.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: May 19th - 25th

from the so-that's-what-happened dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, we watched as the proposed NSA reform bill — the USA Freedom Act — got watered down by the House to the point that every civil liberties organization pulled its support for the law, and it started to look like Reps. Rogers and Ruppersberger had pulled a fast one on us all. The House inevitably passed the now-useless bill (even without the votes of half of its original co-sponsors), so attention had to turn to the Senate and other ways of fighting back against the NSA, like a small victory in freeing the NIST from collaborating with the agency on encryption standards.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, various Attorneys General were still on the warpath against Craigslist (even those who had successfully busted criminals on the site) after it gave in to pressure the previous week. While some tried to draw odd conclusions from Craigslist's cooperation, the company was also fighting back and suing for declaratory relief against one AG. And we had to wonder as they did: why Craigslist, not newspapers or other websites?

Meanwhile, Perfect 10 was shot down yet again in an attempt to hold search engines liable for image thumbnails, while Joel Tenenbaum's lawyer was gearing up for a likely defeat with plans to defend downloading as fair use. And we read one pro-copyright book that surprised us by relying heavily on... Techdirt comments to make its case about how bad the pirates are.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, Jack Valenti was feuding with Quentin Tarantino over the latter's failure to condemn movie piracy, Italy was getting ready to put people in jail for file sharing, and California was considering doing the same. Google was making waves on two fronts: then-brand-new Gmail's unprecedented offering of 1GB of storage was spurring the competition to at least pretend to do the same (while a typo on Gmail itself led some people to think they might be getting a terabyte), and the Google IPO was leading absolutely everyone to try to find a way to benefit from the hype (not least the list of underwriters, which was basically all of Wall Street). But, the guy who had been selling fake "pre-IPO shares" to Wall Street insiders was one of two scammers facing jailtime, too.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: May 12th - 18th

from the how-many-roads dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, we took a look at how the administration's terrible track record on transparency had made lawsuits a default part of the FOIA process, and got an example of how FOIA requests were resulting in agencies sharing less information than they would otherwise. Congress was busy pretending SOPA was actually the law even though it wasn't, the DOJ was trying to downplay its lies to the Supreme Court while also arguing that Americans have no fourth amendment protections for communication with foreigners. Meanwhile, a dangerous court ruling affirmed Europe's right to be forgotten and, predictably, opened the floodgates for abuse. We were also fresh off the Google/Oracle ruling declaring APIs to be copyrightable, which spurred Automattic to pledge that it will not claim such copyright.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, we learned that the recently-discovered fake medial journal published by Elsevier to boost Merck products was not at all an isolated incident. We also saw the beginning of an incredibly important lawsuit that would eventually invalidate the patenting of isolated genes, as the ACLU teamed up with cancer patients to sue Myriad Genetics. It was a question that should have been addressed much earlier.

Meanwhile, Sony's CEO was admitting the company should have taken a more "open" approach to digital music, but they comments were pretty similar to what he'd said years earlier, and the CEO of Sony Pictures was almost simultaneously out saying he thinks no good has come from the internet, at all, period. Universal and YouTube were working on their collaboration to create Vevo, Jammie Thomas refused to settle with the RIAA, and France finally approved its three strikes system for copyright infringement — an approach with problems well illustrated by Ed Felten's modest proposal about applying it to print media as well.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, phone networks were still being stupidly hesitant about selling phones with WiFi because they viewed it as a threat instead of an opportunity, much like newspapers did with text messaging. TiVo was fighting to regain some dominance in the DVR market, IBM was making an early foray into web-based office software suites, and an enterprising scammer bilked several people who should have known better out of millions of dollars by telling gibberish lies about moneymaking opportunities tied to a Google IPO. The press was still misreporting fines for distributing music online as fines for downloading, while the creator of a Japanese file sharing system was worryingly arrested for abetting copyright infringement. And, with the school year nearing its end, we got a handful of stories about students getting in serious trouble, and even arrested, for trying to hack their grades.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: May 5th - 11th

from the chronicled dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, the push for one of two NSA reform bills went somewhat sour as the better bill was watered down so much it got the support of NSA apologists and passed out of the House Judiciary Committee. Meanwhile, the new NSA boss was making extreme understatements about the agency's situation while the former boss (who was also setting up a cybersecurity consulting firm) was defending everything he did. In the UK, at least, parliament finally admitted Snowden's revelations revealed that oversight of the GCHQ was broken.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, anti-Google hysteria reached a fever pitch with comparisons to the Taliban, a grandstanding attorney general was threatening Craigslist's management with criminal charges, and pharma giant Merck was caught having created a fake science journal to praise its products. Some folks were making wild estimates about an unknowable number to support their copyright agenda, claiming the leak of the Wolverine film cost millions at the box office, the RIAA was demonstrating the meaninglessness of its recent promises by continuing to file lawsuits, and we saw the formation of a famous copyright nonsense triangle when Cat Stevens stepped in to say Coldplay copied him, not Joe Satriani. We also took a look at all the ways Italy had been demonstrating a very troubling view of the internet.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, while lots of people were grappling with the unresolved legal implications of WiFi, one smart commentator was cluing in to the fact that camera phones provided the public a way to fight back against surveillance by watching the watchers and filming things like, say, police misdeeds. The mess that was (and is) the patent system was getting some mainstream media attention, as was the ongoing failure of record labels to adapt to the internet (them being too busy suing a grandmother who decided to fight back). The Google IPO had everyone excited about the company (enough to start gobbling up every domain name with "Google" in it), while a meaningless but amusing clerical error led to Microsoft patenting a new breed of apple.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: April 28th - May 4th

from the insert-star-wars-joke dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, while Senators Feinstein and Chambliss were taking yet another shot at a new, concerning cybersecurity bill, they were also backing down on attempts to require transparency from the administration regarding drone strikes. The German government blocked Ed Snowden from testifying before parliament to mollify the US, we learned that the UK'S GCHQ had hidden its access to the NSA's PRISM database from its parliamentary overseers, and we were wondering why Verizon's pushback against bulk records requests was so much weaker than it could have been. This was also the week that John Oliver's Last Week Tonight debuted, with its first episode featuring an interview with Keith Alexander that we couldn't help but notice might be the toughest interview he'd yet faced, even with all the jokes.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, dumb tweets about swine flu led to an early preview of concerns about disinformation on social media. The BBC was happily promoting MPAA propaganda about movie piracy while claiming it was being balanced, German publishers were demanding ISPs block file sharing sites, France was still trying to adopt a three strikes law even as Nicolas Sarkozy was paying up for his own copyright infringement, and in general legacy industries were showing a real sense of entitlement with regards to the internet (not that piracy freak-outs regarding technology were anything new). The USTR finally got Canada bumped up to its Priority Watchlist for intellectual property (for some reason), Warner Music made the very foolish decision to issue a DMCA takedown of a presentation by Larry Lessig, and we learned just how bad the revolving door is with the revelation that former RIAA lawyers now working for the government only had to stay away from issues impacting their former employees for one year.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, we took a look at the one-sided file sharing propaganda being foisted on school students by the entertainment industry — and boy did it ever seem like brainwashing. The Senate was looking at four different intellectual property bills including one that would let the FBI start filing civil suits for its entertainment industry buddies, and one that would expand California's ban on video cameras inside movie theaters. TiVo was pushing advertiser dollars onto the web, an attempt to force cable companies to offer a la carte channels fell through, self-publishing was shedding some of its stigma as it got easier, and the first federal charges were brought under the recent CAN SPAM laws. This was also the week that, after much anticipation, Google officially filed for its IPO — which of course everyone had to weigh in on, including us.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: April 21st - 27th

from the what-went-down dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, James Clapper was busy giving speeches to students to try to prevent any admiration of Ed Snowden, and working hard to stop members of the intelligence community from talking to pretty much anyone. Homeland Security was warning parents that typical teenage behavior might be a sign of terrorist radicalization, while a court was telling the DOJ it must release the memo that described the justificiation for a drone strike on a US citizen.

Meanwhile, we were wondering why the US government was getting involved in the Aereo case (on the broadcast industry's side of course), though at least it appeared at the time that the SCOTUS justices understood the gravity of the case, even as so many people persisted in describing Aereo's compliance with copyright law as circumvention of copyright law.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, while the entertainment industry was doing its best to celebrate the recent verdict against the Pirate Bay, some folks in Sweden noticed that the judge in the case appeared to have ties to the copyright lobby, while journalists were beginning to realize that Google can do anything The Pirate Bay could. Meanwhile in the UK, British Telecom was voluntarily blocking the site as an act of unnecessary self-regulation.

We also took a look back at ten (failed) years of the V-Chip, and witnessed the end of an era when Yahoo announced it was killing off Geocities.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, we witnessed both slightly good and worryingly bad omens regarding the future of patent reform — but we also saw the birth of the EFF's excellent patent-busting program. A lawsuit over liability for Napster's investors was headed to court, while the RIAA was ditching its absurd amnesty program for file sharers, various groups were trying to automate the booting and blocking of file sharers — though there were early signs of a shift in piracy from file sharing to stream ripping. We also saw the first person ever charged under a seven-year-old internet stalking law.

Filed Under: history, look back