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

This Week In Techdirt History: April 14th - 20th

from the so-it-was dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, the world was dealing with the Heartbleed bug and turning its attention to the NSA's possible awareness of it — leading Obama to tell them to start revealing flaws but with no particular incentive to actually do so. It wasn't clear if the NSA had definitely known about and used Heartbleed, but there was nothing stopping them and people certainly weren't going to take their advice on dealing with it. Overall, the simple truth was that the government pays to undermine, not fix internet security. Meanwhile, the Guardian and the Washington Post won Pulitzers for their coverage of the Snowden leaks, which made a lot of folks angry including Rep. Peter King and CIA torture authorizer John Yoo.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, the BSA was using the spate of stories about Somali pirates to talk about software piracy in a stunningly tonedeaf fashion, NBC was crafting its plans to make Olympic coverage worse and more expensive, the Associated Press was admitting its attack on aggregators looks stupid to the "untrained eye" while failing to explain why it shouldn't look stupid to everyone else too, and a hilarious but frightening warrant application got a college student's computer seized in part for using "a black screen with white font which he uses prompt commands on". DMCA abuse was chugging along as usual, with an activist group using it to hide exposure of its astroturfing and a news station using it to cover up video of it embarrassingly falling for an April Fool's story. And long before the Snowden revelations, not only were we already seeing revelations about the NSA's abuse of power, we were already unsurprised.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, the internet was still beginning to embrace some of the innovations that define it today: location-based services were on the rise, with Google launching localized ads and mobile phone navigation systems threatening to oust expensive dedicated hardware (something also happening in other areas like event ticket handling), and more and more people were going online wirelessly in one way or another. Of course, along with this was the rise of some more problematic trends too, like patent hoarding houses and DRM. In California, the first two arrests were made under a new law banning all kinds of video cameras in movie theaters, while one state senator was seeking to completely ban Gmail (which was still new) for some reason — though at least the legislature shot down another ban on violent video game sales to minors.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: April 7th - 13th

from the it's-back! dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, former NSA and CIA boss Michael Hayden was getting pathetically aggressive, calling Dianne Feinstein too emotional to judge the CIA torture report (which we were only learning about via piecemeal leaks), and calling congressional staffers "sissies" while accusing Ron Wyden of not acting like a man. At the same time, Mike Rogers was still pushing his "Ed Snowden is a russian spy" angle, while Snowden himself was saying the NSA lied in its claim that he didn't raise concerns through proper channels, and telling the Council of Europe about how the agency spied on Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

Meanwhile, Hollywood was piling on to the already-dead Megaupload with a far-reaching lawsuit that packed in multiple attacks on the internet in general, and was quickly followed by the RIAA filing a virtually identical suit of its own.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, Amanda Palmer was sharing insights into how her fans support her work while Trent Reznor was taking his business model experiments into the mobile space, and a new service was announced that would let musicians pre-fund their releases (and it's not around anymore — but two weeks later, Kickstarter would launch).

The Associated Press announced its plans to sue news aggregators, Fox fired a movie columnist for reviewing a leaked copy of Wolverine, old-industry guard like U2's manager and Andrew Lloyd Weber were out trashing the internet, and Hollywood's favorite lawmakers were preparing for the next big copyright expansion push.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, we saw the first court ruling to state that online content aggregation was legal, setting the stage for later tantrums like the AP's, and the outrage of some publishers today. Gmail was the new kid on the internet block and people weren't sure how they felt about it (or whether it violated EU data privacy laws), just as mathematicians weren't quite sure how they felt about proofs that rely on computer calculations — while some clueless analysts were very sure about how much they hated the "fad" of camera phones. Google and Yahoo both stopped accepting ads for online casinos, seemingly out of the blue until we learned of some nasty letters recently sent out by the DOJ.

This was also the week that we saw the beginnings of a terrible idea that simply refuses to die, and rises like a zombie every now and then to this day: the WIPO broadcast treaty.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the back-then dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, the Snowden revelations continued with information like the NSA and FBI getting access to 40,000 Yahoo and Google accounts in the first half of 2013, and the GCHQ trying to hit Anonymous with a DDoS attack, while some new FOIA documents got us a closer look at how surveillance info is laundered via "parallel construction". Germany's Chaos Computer Club filed a criminal complaint against the German government over mass surveillance, while a Belgian prosecutor began looking into reports that the NSA and GCHQ hacked a well-known Belgian cryptographer. Meanwhile, Mike Rogers was trying to argue that Glenn Greenwald should be prosecuted for 'selling stolen material', Benjkamin Wittes was arguing that it's okay for the agency to deny spying on Americans, even if it does, and the DOJ was admitting that the NSA's phone record collection probably included congress.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, a researcher predicted that technology was going to render copyright completely obsolete within a year or so. This did not, of course, come true — but it's easy to see where it came from, even just given the copyright absurdity happening that very week. The EU was considering a draconian copyright proposal not unlike today's reform directive, the RIAA hired a new litigation boss with a history of 'misstating facts' in court while the DOJ was packing its ranks with entertainment and software industry lawyers, there was a proposal for new ACTA provisions that would criminalize non-commercial infringement, Blizzard successfully abused copyright to go after World Of Warcraft bots, and the Associated Press began demanding money for the photo that was the basis of Shepard Fairey's famous Obama poster.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, the EFF and other groups had noticed some dangerous corner-cutting in the RIAA's latest round of mass lawsuits, while the agency also appeared to be struggling to force its narrative about piracy onto the Morpheus/Grokster trial. The MyDoom virus was wreaking some havoc, causing Microsoft to set up an alternative website and, of course, causing antivirus companies to push massive damage estimates for reporters to uncritically repeat. One prediction piece about 3D printers may have jumped the gun slightly by saying they were closer than most people thought, but another was prescient in predicting that user-created video is the killer app for broadband, or at least wise to catch on to the fact that the internet is about connecting and communicating, not consuming a broadcast.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the what-went-down dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, Dianne Feinstein was defending the NSA on the basis that they are so "professional", while ignoring declassified facts that contradicted some of her statements. Then the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board released an anticipated report that destroyed the arguments for bulk collections — and noted that the FISA court didn't even bother evaluating the legality of such collections until after the Snowden leaks. TV news stations, meanwhile, seemed intent on giving NSA defenders all the air time in the world, and though NSA critics got a bit of time too, sometimes they had to cut away due to critical events beyond their control... like the latest Justin Bieber news.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, as usual, the recording industry was engaged in multiple battles. The RIAA was considering trying to bribe ISPs into playing along with its copyright strikes program, while its British equivalent was convincing the UK government to force them to do so, and a bunch of labels were launching the first infringement lawsuit directly targeting an ISP in Ireland. But the biggest fight was the developing Joel Tenenbaum case, where the RIAA was so opposed to it being streamed online that they appealed the judge's order (supposedly out of fear that people might remix it to make them look bad, as if they needed any help with that) — and they even sought sanctions against Tenenbaum's lawyer.

Fifteen Years Ago

The Tenenbaum case was in response to the RIAA's mass lawsuit strategy, and the same week in 2004 was a prime example, with the agency suing 532 new John Does in the hopes of subpoenaing their information. Meanwhile, Kazaa was suing the industry in an audacious move of its own. Pepsi put a bunch of kids sued by the RIAA in a commercial for their limited time iTunes promotion, while Coca-Cola was struggling to keep its ill-fated music download service up and running (it was a weird time).

The photography industry was trying to drag on the quality of camera phones, thus missing the point which is that people can do new things with them, like the early discovery that they could be bar-code scanners. And, in an event that seems worth noting given today's insane and chaotic news climate, this was around the time that dedicated "fact-checking" sites started popping up online.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the so-it-went dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, as congress was preparing to give up its authority and fast-track agreements like the TPP, and the USTR was not even showing up for hearings on the subject, the EFF and others teamed up to launch Copyright Week, for which we featured daily posts about copyright. On Monday, we looked at the reasons why the USTR and Hollywood hate transparency; on Tuesday, we dug into the loss to culture from killing the public domain; on Wednesday, we pivoted to knowledge and learning with a post all about Open Access; on Thursday, we looked at how copyright can destroy property rights; and then on Friday we wrapped it up with a look at the importance of fair use.

Ten Years Ago

Copyright was also on our minds this week in 2009, especially since it turned out the RIAA's promise to stop suing file sharers was not so solid when they filed yet another new lawsuit. Less awful but still very disappointing was the discovery that Apple's much-vaunted removal of DRM from iTunes songs also meant they were watermarking all the files with your email address. We took another look at how friendly DRM is an oxymoron, how collection societies like ASCAP and BMI harm up-and-coming singers, and the long, fraught history of copyright and music in general. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court was asking the administration for input on copyright issues related to remote DVRs, and the judge for a case challenging the constitutionality of the RIAA's actions agreed to broadcast the trial live online.

Fifteen Years Ago

Sometimes it's eerie and depressing how little changes across these five-year jumps. In 2004, the RIAA was just in an ever-so-slightly different phase of its activities following the loss of its ability subpoena file sharer information after the Verizon case: it was just trying to get ISPs to do it voluntarily, and having a hard time getting any on board. Studies suggested that the war against file sharing was gaining little ground, as piracy appeared to be on the upswing again while moving deeper underground. Over at the MPAA, the situation was similar: having just been blocked by a judge from banning screener DVDs for award shows, the agency was drumming up concern over the copies that began to show up online, which they started slowly finding one by one. Meanwhile, some folks were suggesting ways to deal with video piracy by totally missing the point of online video.

Filed Under: history, look back