This Week In Techdirt History: December 31st - January 6th

from the a-new-year dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2013, we kicked off the year by witnessing things start to go seriously wrong for a little law firm by the name of Prenda. Well, that and noting how, as usual, nothing at all was entering the public domain (a situation that looked like it could be extended thanks to the supreme court). The Megaupload case was mired in the courts and some companies were getting impatient. And we saw some pretty stunning DMCA nonsense with a takedown over a barely-customized default blog login page.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2008, Hollywood was getting a taste of trade negotiation problems, the RIAA was admitting some errors in the Jammie Thomas trial (while flubbing an opportunity for some not-awful PR), and RealNetworks (which was still around) was shutting down competitors. We couldn't help think the entertainment industry needed to learn from the folks making a living by selling public domain content on eBay.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2003 (and the last few days of 2002), the internet was changing and growing: it appeared that criminals had really figured out to use it, and there was a debate over dropping the capital "I" at the beginning, and of course some time to mourn the death of the payphone. We saw the DMCA abused to take down an entire web host over one claim of infringement, and record labels try to claim that even 95 years is too short for copyright, while one author was trying to challenge the unusual copyright on Peter Pan, and the tech industry was gearing up to fight back against DRM. Also, we celebrated the 20th birthday of TCP/IP.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the EOY dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2012, we were a bit surprised and confused to see pirated movies being shared from Hollywood IP addresses — and, it soon turned out, from all major record labels, and several government agencies including the DOJ. Whether this was just amateur honeypotting was unclear, but whatever the case, Hollywood still broke records at the box office that year. Meanwhile, the Senate was debating the extension of FISA — which means they were rejecting amendments that could improve it and passing it with all its problems intact.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2007, we took a look at Hollywood's ongoing crusade to convince ISPs around the world to block sites it doesn't like, and also at how the industry's supposed challenges with digitally archiving films are caused by their obsession with ownership and copyright, not technological limitations. The MPAA, at least, realized (after years of complaints) that elaborately DRM-laden DVD screeners for the Oscars are not worth the effort. Meanwhile, as the EU began looking to destroy fashion innovation by enforcing fashion copyrights, we were even more distressed to hear copyright mentioned in the same breath as the great pyramids of Egypt and the works of Michelangelo.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2002, people were telling the Copyright Office just what they think about the terrible parts of the DMCA, as Declan McCullough was treading the line of fearmongering but still providing a good look at some of the injustices the law enables. Cablevision's Optimum Online broadband was threatening to ban customers who use file trading services (regardless of the purpose of their use), and Hollywood was still obsessed with DRM — and this is an industry smart enough to fire the guy who convinced them selling DVDs might be a good idea!

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the advent-calendar dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2012, the MPAA was claiming that millions of DMCA takedowns are proof that Google needs to magically stop piracy, while the RIAA was trying to rewrite the history of copyright, and the BPI was threatening to personally sue the leaders of the UK pirate party. But the intellectual property diplomats at the US State Department were moaning about how they can't export strict copyright laws as easily as they'd like to, since for every country like the UK (where London police were setting up a special force of copyright cops), there was one like Australia (which was refusing to play Hollywood's game). Then, of course, at the end of that same week, the administration's shortlist for new ambassador appointments included a bunch of big Hollywood donors.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2007, it was sports organizations taking the lead in the copyright fight, realizing they could (ab)use it to try to stifle press coverage, and clamp down on those dastardly live-bloggers. The IFPI went after Alibaba for linking to downloadable music, while the Korean government was paying out $170 million to publishers to mollify them after copyright extensions hurt their businesses. Amidst all this, we were pointing out that "balance" in copyright is a myth and a red herring, and it's time to get off of our unhealthy addiction to intellectual property.

Fifteen Years Ago

Not much different this week in 2002, with the RIAA amping up its extremely dubious claims with extremely dubious math and Hollywood fighting to ban DVD-copying software — while more and more people began to realize that copyright was enabling widespread censorship (not to mention undermining cybersecurity). But, there was a noteworthy light in the darkness! It was this week, about a year after the initial announcement, that Creative Commons was officially launched and began its ongoing project to change the way we think about copyright, content and sharing.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the the-waning-year dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2012, more and more people were coming out against the efforts of the ITU's WCIT, including both Tim Berners-Lee joining the already-active Vint Cerf and Mozilla expressing its concerns. Though the White House denied that it was prepared to dump the ITU, it was firm in refusing to support a bad treaty. The ITU itself was doing a really bad job of pretending to respond to people's complaints, and even though a whole bunch of countries ended up refusing to sign the treaty, the boss decided to go ahead and declare victory anyway.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2007, people were digging in to the recently introduced PRO-IP bill, with the DOJ coming out against the legislation, even as Hollywood's favorite lawmaker complained it wasn't strong enough, and the inimitable William Patry explaining the many problems with the bill. North of the border, Canada was stalling out in its efforts to introduce its own version of the DMCA as public opposition continued to grow rapidly. And, in a piece of news that is especially amusing given recent events, people were just realizing that you could pretty much submit anything to the FCC's public comment system, including fake comedy entries claiming to be from Leon Trotsky, George W. Bush and... Donald Trump.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2002, there was a lot of uncertainty in the world of internet distribution and media distribution in general. We believed predictions that the DVD would be the last physical format, perhaps underestimating Hollywood's aggression on that front — like the fact that device makers appeared poised to give in to demands to put copy protection in everything. The Balkanization of the web into many walled gardens was becoming really concerning (though of course it was still silly for folks like the New York Times to be predicting "the end of free content"), but some folks like Tim O'Reilly were at least able to see the bigger picture on issues like piracy. And while it's easy to forget today that it wasn't always that easy or cheap to get yourself a web host for your small business (let alone personal) needs, in 2002 it was a big deal that a major player like Yahoo announced it would be getting into the small business hosting game.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the noteworthy-moments dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2012, the ITU was holding its World Conference on International Telecommunications to try to, more or less, "fix the internet" (not that it was broken). Their ideas about speeding up infrastructure built-out were more likely to slow it down, and it was unclear who many of the new proposed rules actually covered. They rushed to approve a deep packet inspection standard in secret, then turned out to be really bad at secrecy. Amidst all this it was no surprise that Congress managed to pass a unanimous resolution telling the ITU to keep its hands off the internet.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2007, Apple (while navigating the iPhone patent minefield) was proposing a plan to make extortion an explicit part of DRM, while Nielsen was for some reason trying to become a copyright cop. Perfect 10 was losing in its attempts to blame anyone with money for infringement, rather than the infringer while the MPAA, in an instance of extremely amusing irony, was forced to take its anti-piracy kit for universities offline for violating the GPL license on code therein. This was also the week that we saw the introduction of the PRO IP Act, which would be signed into law the following year.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2002, file sharing was in the legal crosshairs as Morpheus and Grokster went to court. Deals site FatWallet challenged a crazy DMCA claim from Wal-Mart over posting sale prices, leading to a public outcry and, later in the week, Wal-Mart backed down. We got a good example of licensing insanity when Finnish taxi drivers were forced to pay for the music they play in their taxis, and in the least surprising news ever, analysis of broadband prices following the recent Comcast/AT&T Broadband merger showed that they were going up.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: November 26th - December 2nd

from the time-and-time-again dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2012, the copyright crowd was still reeling from the RSC report by Derek Khanna, and desperately trying to downplay it by chanting copyright is property! At the same time, Chris Dodd was trying to claim that the silly Facebook "copyright notice" that gets passed around proves everyone's love of copyright. But this same week, a case against UCLA over the streaming of licensed DVDs was dismissed, and Disney itself was sued for copyright infringement (though frankly that suit was pretty ridiculous). Oh, and Techdirt was also accused of infringement — and posted an open letter in response.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2007, movie producers were busy pissing off their directors and record labels were busy pissing off their musicians, all because artists could see the value of downloads and remixes and the suits couldn't. The MPAA's attempts to "help" universities fight file sharing looked a lot like distributing a malicious rootkit, and people were getting wise to the BSA's vindictive campaign over pirated software. The Romantics were closing the age-old gap in the music industry's permission culture when it comes to cover songs, and suing a licensed cover for sounding too much like the original, and the French government was working on a plan to kick file-sharers off the internet that would grow into the failure that was HADOPI.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2002, AOL-Time Warner was really committing to the walled garden game by musing about cutting off Time Magazine content from the wider web, anti-piracy groups were developing the strategy of just sending bills to file-sharers, and ISPs were considering an idea that, yes, was new at the time: data caps on home broadband. Internet rights activists in Spain won a victory against anti-internet legislation, while in the artist world people were becoming more afraid of copyright than government censorship. And, even though fifteen years later not much has changed, people were realizing that the antivirus software model was deeply broken, and kind of a racket.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the happy-thanksgiving! dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2012, we saw a lot of interesting documents related to copyright. First, there was the excellent report from Derek Khanna at the Republican Study Committee, which was quickly retracted by the party (but that wouldn't be the last we'd hear from Khanna — and we continued to look closely at the report). Next, there was the newly available English translation of a Polish copyright study that, it turned out, had been critical to the growth of the ACTA opposition. Finally, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University was getting ready to publish a book about the need for copyright reform — just as rightsholders were co-opting the "reform" language for their own purposes.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2007, we got the opinions of presidential candidates on copyright through the lens of an incredibly slanted survey clearly aimed at promoting stronger laws, while a much better and more interesting report was highlighting just how much casual infringement everyone commits every day (rendering copyright law largely obsolete). While music retailers were begging the recording industry to cut it out with the DRM and the MPAA was defending its assault on universities, the writer's strike was highlighting just how many new competitors Hollywood has online. Meanwhile, a company was claiming to offer "open-source DRM", which we noted is either not open source, or not DRM.

Fifteen Years Ago

The more things change, the more they sound exactly like they did in 2001 — like concerns about the uptick in fake, doctored photos being spread online, and tech companies asking the FCC not to filter the internet. On the copyright front, some were of course trying to claim that DRM can save the entertainment industry while Microsoft was realizing that it's a futile endeavor. We also pointed to an early article discussing something that would become a common point here at Techdirt: copyright is about user rights, not an analogy for property. Meanwhile, though it started as a small and curious experiment, it was becoming apparent that Google and Amazon's newfangled "web services" offerings might change the face of the web as we know it.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the forgotten-but-not-gone dept

Five Years Ago

We've been talking a lot about copyright in these history posts recently, but this week in 2012 there was more news on the patent front. While patent troll TQP Development was launching a new crusade against hundreds of companies, the patent-aggressive medical device company Medtronic was getting a taste of its own medicine, and HTC and Apple were putting a patent dispute to rest. IBM's patent lawyer was making some vague arguments in defense of the patent system, while an excellet Wired article was laying out said system's many problems, and a Harvard research scientist was declaring sharing discoveries to be more efficient and honorable than patenting them.

Ten Years Ago

There was plenty of patent news this week in 2007 too, with a random patent over computer databases rearing its head to extract some cash from Google, and an astounding new case over a text messaging patent targeting 131 defendants. Patent hoarder Acacia was launching some new attacks while losing at least one lawsuit, and Nathan Myhrvold was raising $1-billion to buy even more patents to troll people with. Garmin and TomTom settled a patent dispute to concentrate on acquisition fights, an analyst firm succeeded in escaping an aggressive patent lawsuit over data collection, and we took a closer look at the sovereign immunity laws that were letting State Universities sue over patents without ever getting sued back.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2002, Hollywood was launching its too-little-too-late VOD service Movielink, while music labels were struggling to catch up with digital distribution after dragging their heels for far too long (with EMI taking an extremely slight lead). While the legal battle over DVD copying software remained unresolved, the software was released anyway, right around the same time that Sony and Phillips teamed up to buy a DRM company.

But probably our most interesting headline in retrospect was US Plans Huge Computer System To Spy On The Public. This, in 2002, referred to the first reports on DARPA's new Information Awareness Office, which was so controversial that Congress would de-fund it the following year. It would be another ten years before the Snowden leaks revealed that its key surveillance programs had simply been renamed and moved to different agencies, and continued to receive funding under classified annexes.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the always-with-the-DRM dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2012, while Twitter was improving its DMCA policy, YouTube copyright claims managed to take down a viral video of a 9-year-old football star and, of course, a video all about fair use and remix culture, just as noted asshole Craig Brittain was launching his DMCA abuse strategy with Popehat in the crosshairs. And the Harry Fox Agency somehow managed to claim copyright over 164-year-old Johann Strauss music, while shortsighted publishers managed to extract a hefty ruling against lyric websites.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2007, the huge Writers' Guild strike began, causing all kinds of ripple effects in Hollywood, though not interfering with the Senate's attempts to turn the DOJ into Hollywood's police force. The entertainment industry was really figuring out how to use DRM and the DMCA to stifle innovation by shutting down a DVD jukebox, even as Blu-Ray DRM was being rapidly cracked and other DRM was turning up security holes — not to mention MLB screwing over a bunch of fans who purchased content by changing their DRM scheme and making that content disappear.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2002 was pretty much exactly the same on the DRM front, with BMG striving to copy-protect all CDs sold in Europe and EMI taking a similar attitude, while two of the biggest names in copy protection technology were merging to join forces in the futile fight, I suppose not listening to the computer scientists pointing out that CD copy protection is worthless But what else could the music industry do? Online CD sales were falling, and who could they possibly blame but pirates?

Filed Under: history, look back