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

from the as-you-were dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2016, Donald Trump was doubling down on Ted Cruz's argument for blocking the transition of the IANA away from the commerce department (not the only stupid argument on the subject), but the Senate came to its senses and did not support the plan. The House Intelligence Committee released a list of "Snowden's Lies" that was almost entirely false, while the Washington Post was condemning Snowden and we wondered if it would give back its Pulitzer Prize, while Chelsea Manning was facing indefinite solitary confinement after a suicide attempt. The man arrested over KickassTorrents was being blocked from talking to his US attorney, while a former UMG executive was calling for the destruction of the DMCA. And we took a closer look at the more complex reasons for ridiculous bogus takedown demands in mass DMCA filings.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2011, Righthaven was failing to pay attorney fees ordered by the court and we looked at what would happen if the company declared bankruptcy. A lawyer was seeking to wipe out critical anonymous speech, the Authors Guild was trying to play "gotcha" with orphaned works instead of fixing the problem, and we looked at the entertainment industry's coordinated effort to blame third parties for piracy. In Italy, a proposed law would ban people from the internet based on a single accusation of infringement, leading an EU Parliament Member to ask the EU Commission what it would do if the law passed — while the Commissioner was busy asking big copyright to increase its lobbying efforts.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2006, Warner Music took the lead in signing deals with YouTube, while Microsoft was launching a YouTube copycat site (leading us to remember that, a few months prior, Bill Gates had explained why Microsoft would never try to do that). A Belgian court ordered Google to stop linking to news websites, prompting the company to fight back and hit a wall. Yahoo was timidly experimenting with DRM-free music, while the press was noticing how disappointing the early online video offerings from Apple and Amazon were. And, twenty years after the fact, The Knack noticed that their song My Sharona had been sampled by Run DMC and filed a very late lawsuit.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the way-back-when dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2016, Netflix was urging the FCC to crack down on broadband usage caps, Hollywood was struggling to keep its movie screeners secure (despite insisting that anti-piracy tech should be easy), and Paramount issued a DMCA takedown over an Ubuntu Linux torrent. Scientists were realizing that the recent ruling in Europe on infringement-by-linking was making science much more difficult, while the EU was barreling ahead with its absolutely ridiculous copyright proposal, and another bad EU ruling said that WiFi providers can be forced to require passwords if copyright holders demand it. The ACLU was launching a campaign to have President Obama pardon Ed Snowden, while the House Intelligence Committee was insisting that he doesn't qualify as a whistleblower. We also took a closer look at how corporate sovereignty provisions in trade deals are dangerous, while over 200 economics and law professors were urging Congress to reject such provisions. Also, this was the week that Prenda's Paul Hansmeier lost his law license.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2011, a new proposal in the UK would allow police to seize domain names without a court order, the US government was continuing to indict people for file sharing, the Authors Guild filed lawsuits against five universities for providing access to orphaned works, and Hotfile was fighting back against Warner Bros. with a countersuit for copyright misuse. Europe's recent retroactive copyright extension was leading to much well-deserved anger (considering it was costing the public a billion euros), while Canada was planning to reintroduce its terrible copyright plan. We also took a look at one of the starkest examples of the insanity of Hollywood accounting: the fact that the actor who played Darth Vader was still not getting paid because supposedly Return of the Jedi was still not profitable.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2006, record labels were being evasive about their own use of file sharing tech, Universal Music was publicly threatening to sue YouTube and MySpace, the USPTO was getting in on the game of brainwashing school kids about infringement, and we reiterated the arguments about why fashion copyright isn't necessary. Nearly a year after the original scandal, Sony's rootkit was still causing problems, while the company was trying to avoid having to pay out another settlement in Canada. The world's largest DVD manufacturer was bragging about yet another DRM scheme, and we noted how — after all the "significant blows" to piracy that had supposedly been happening — piracy still wasn't going down. Also this week, we saw a very early attempt by a Chinese car company at showing off a fully driverless vehicle.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the past-to-present dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2016, AT&ampT was tapdancing around its DirecTV merger obligations and tiptoeing past a sleepy FCC's net neutrality rules — perhaps because the FCC was busy weakening its cable box reform plans in response to industry lobbying, although this didn't stop Comcast from still finding things to whine about, nor the MPAA from freaking out about the new plan. Warner Bros. managed to issue DMCA takedowns for its own website, Take Two won its publicity rights lawsuits against Lindsay Lohan and Karen Gravano, and Google screwed over a bunch of media websites. We took a closer look at why the Copyright Office acts as Hollywood's lobbying arm, while a terrible ruling in the EU said that mere links can be direct infringement.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2011, the MPAA was so thrilled with the Zediva ruling that it was offering to help the court spread it around, and was also busy pushing bogus piracy numbers that suggested pirates would buy 200 more DVDs per year if they couldn't download stuff. France was placing copyright above human rights, Sweden was dismantling its online civil rights at the behest of US content industries, a Russian bureaucrat was calling for Google and Youtube to be shut down for facilitating infringement, a Canadian politician turned out to have secretly asked the US to ramp up diplomatic pressure for more draconian copyright laws, and Europe was adopting a copyright strategy that would see Europeans send as much money as possible to US companies — while also seizing the public domain by retroactively extending copyright. EMI was getting desperate with legal theories about pre-1972 songs, the RIAA was sending DMCA takedowns over free music being distributed directly from the Universal Music website, and Puerto 80 was continuing its fight over the DOJ's domain seizures.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2006, a patent dispute had the bizarre effect of forcing SanDisk to only show photos of a new MP3 player at a trade show, though the company managed to get the injunction overturned when it was too late. Clear Channel was fighting for relaxed rules so it could buy up even more radio stations, newspapers were still really struggling to understand the internet, and magazines were fumbling around trying to cash in on the online video craze. EMI was freaking out and demanding IP addresses over a popular new Beatles/Beach Boys mashup, while a settlement with Bertlesmann over its Napster investment was poised to make things complicated for investors. And we also had another of our early posts talking about Section 230 back when it was a relatively obscure law to most people, rather than a well-known political football (not that broad understanding of how it works has actually improved much since then).

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: August 29th - September 4th

from the as-it-happened dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2016, a leaked copyright proposal in the EU was a complete mess with lots of terrible ideas — though that didn't stop Hollywood from finding something in it to freak out about — while a report from the UK government pretty much accused Facebook, Twitter, and Google of being unrepentant supporters of terrorism. On the flipside, we were surprised that the EU adopted net neutrality guidelines that didn't suck. James Comey was calling for an "adult conversation" about encryption but still refusing to listen to experts, while the DHS's new Election Cybersecurity Committee also lacked any cybersecurity experts, and we noted the Clinton Campaign's hypocrisy on encryption. And, of course, the monkey selfie debacle continued, this time with PETA losing its "next friend" status.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2011, we saw more of how ridiculous the lawsuits were from US Copyright Group and the Hurt Locker producers, the DOJ was battling Puerto 80 in court over its domain seizures (leading the latter to appeal on First Amendment grounds), and we took another look at the total lack of evidence for the supposed necessity of a fashion copyright. A DMCA takedown "prank" led to all of Justin Bieber's videos being removed from YouTube, and so all of a sudden record label executives were concerned about DMCA abuse (while Twitter was having its own problems with highly questionable DMCA claims leading to account suspensions). Meanwhile, an appeals court ruled that arresting a man for filming the cops violated the First and Fourth Amendments, but at the same time a man who filmed the cops in Illinois was facing 75 years in jail at the hands of an Assistant AG who insisted there is no right to record the police.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2006, cablecos and telcos seemed to be suddenly realizing that their service sucks, not that they would be fixing that anytime soon, while we took a closer look at the telco shills polluting the net neutrality debate. A weird internal copyright battle at the UK Cabinet Office led to one part of the office pulling another part's videos off YouTube, while the New York Times was blocking an article for UK readers for fear of liability under the country's problematic laws. In the midst of the world learning about its highly questionable conditions, Foxconn was threatening reporters with life-destroying consequences, but then tried to back down. Meanwhile, the MPAA was using its rating powers to obstruct a documentary about its rating powers, and the RIAA (which at the same time was still fighting for the right to scour people's hard drives) was following the MPAA's lead and creating an "educational campaign" to brainwash people about the evils of piracy.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the and-so-it-came-to-pass dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2016, we watched as telcos tapdanced around net neutrality requirements, and also took a look yet again at the clear evidence that net neutrality didn't hurt broadband investment. The think tank that originally proposed SOPA claimed to have "proof" that it would have been great, Obama was pushing to ratify the TPP, and India made it a criminal act to merely visit a site that was "blocked" for copyright infringement. On the podcast, we had an interview with Kim Dotcom's lawyer, while it also came out that the FBI had let its seized Megaupload domains lapse and they were now enhanced darkweb child porn sites in its efforts to combat them). This was also the week that we launched our Copying Is Not Theft t-shirt (which was much later taken down by Teespring with no explanation, so you can now get it on Threadless.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2011, the chorus of mainstream press talking about how the patent system is broken was getting louder, with even the Wall Street Journal getting in on the action. The RIAA filed a predictable appeal over the judge's decision to decrease the jury award in the Jammie Thomas trial, the ruling in the MP3Tunes lawsuit thankfully protected DMCA safe harbors, and we looked at an important but often overlooked aspect of the fair use ruling over South Park's What What (In The Butt)? parody. Meanwhile, the fight was on over PROTECT IP, with Don Henley supporting it due to his irrational hatred of YouTube and the Washington Post promoting it with an editorial full of questionable claims, while Paul Vixie issued a thorough explanation of how it would break the internet. And we also had one of our first posts about what, at the time, was a "side show" in the Oracle/Google patent fight: API copyrights.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2006, we took a look at how takedown notices were challenging the internet's usual ability to route around censorship, and discussed the failures of the RIAA's automated lawsuit threat strategy (as well as looking at a way to stupidly lose such a lawsuit, and another way to get one dismissed). Heads were rolling inside AOL over its search data leak, while researchers were conflicted about making use of the potentially very useful data. This was also the week that Amazon rolled out something that would become a central component of so many modern internet services, by offering processing power at utility rates for people to use in building products.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the stuff-that-happened dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2016, a wave of newspapers that had tried out paywall models were discovering they didn't work as well as hoped, and those that had come to rely almost solely on Facebook for traffic were realizing that might have been a mistake. Snowden documents revealed that the NSA and New Zealand had been spying on pro-democracy activists, the DNC set up a Cybersecurity Board that was devoid of cybersecurity experts, and Donald Trump was promising to keep terrorists off the internet. Peter Thiel was taking a weird victory lap regarding Gawker, and we were disappointed to see LinkedIn abusing the CFAA and DMCA to sue scraping bots. Also, an episode of our podcast featured an early discussion of what would become a major theme for us over the past few years: the difference between platforms and protocols.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2011, some cops were trying to fight citizen recordings with wiretapping charges, and other cops were making excuses about why they can detain harmless photographers. Google spent a cool $12.5-billion to buy Motorola Mobility for all its patents, and we took a look at just what it was getting out of the deal and how it represented the loss to innovation caused by patents. We had a few other posts on the patent system too, looking at how they can be detrimental to the long-term success of startups, debunking the myth that they want or need them, and asking why monopolies for the first to invent something are really so important.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2006, Apple seemed to be on the warpath against any product with "pod" in the name, Jack Thompson was demanding early access to video games so he could get mad about them, and a mistake at Techdirt caused the deletion of a morning's worth of comments. The RIAA oh-so-graciously gave a family 60 days to grieve before continuing its case against a dead man, but then backed down in the face of widespread coverage and backlash, while the recording industry was taking petty revenge on a musician who supported free music and the movie industry was using push polls to defend the theater industry. We also took a look at how the more Hollywood attacks file sharing, the further underground it goes.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: August 8th - 14th

from the reminiscence dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2016, we looked at the recent emergence of the new "value gap" rhetoric" in music industry complaints about tech, while Kickass Torrents was trying to get the Justice Department to drop charges against it, and Ed Sheeran was facing lawsuits for songs that were merely inspired by older songs. The EFF was asking the FTC to enforce "truth in labeling" rules around DRM, a judge upheld his own problematic ruling concerning Cox's repeat infringer policy and the DMCA, and we were anticipating a deluge of copyright fights over viral news videos. One judge thankfully laughed off the notion that Twitter was liable for ISIS attacks, while another court said the FBI had to be much more frequent about reviewing NSL gag orders. And the Monkey Selfie case got even more silly with an amacus brief from a primatologist.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2011, some patent troll lawyers were smacked down and made to pay sanctions, while the website Fark got another patent troll to settle for nothing. We looked at a historical example of how even the death penalty doesn't stop infringement, just as New York was expanding anti-piracy laws for no reason and a court in India ruled that service providers are liable for copyright infringement by users — all while file sharing continued to grow, not shrink. A very worrying ruling by the Sixth Circuit said that sending too many emails can violate the CFAA, Apple advertised how frightened it was of the Samsung Galaxy tablet by getting a Europe-wide blockade of the device, and the San Mateo County District Attorney finally realized that Gizmodo didn't break the law by writing about the iPhone 4 prototype it found.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2006, AOL made a huge and astonishing unforced error by exposing the search queries of 500,000 users for research purposes, leading the CEO to eventually start calling individual customers to apologize — and the incident seemed to spark some recognition in government that data retention isn't a good thing. The Senate released a patent reform plan with some good aspects and a whole lot of bad ones, while a very interesting patent battle broke out over Amazon's infamous one-click patent. Major League Baseball failed in its attempt to claim ownership of stats, but decided to double down with a slightly different approach. And the RIAA was fighting against efforts to have its representatives deposed in a lawsuit by demanding sweeping gag orders on the depositions.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: August 1st - 7th

from the back-then dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2016, it was revealed that the FBI's hacking tool compromised dozens of computers in Australia, while new FOIA documents showed that the FISA court once refused the FBI's request to scoop up communications along with metadata, one FBI official was comparing encryption guru Moxie Marlinspike to the KKK, and the Manhattan DA was claiming he didn't want encryption backdoors even though he certainly did. Meanwhile, we were wondering why the Copyright Office was helping to protect the cable industry's monopoly on cable boxes, and why it was so intent on changing the part of copyright that protects libraries and archives. The RIAA's latest attacks on YouTube were drawing criticism even from usual defenders of the association, and the DOJ made a smart decision about music licensing that caused music publishers to freak out.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2011, we highlighted the latest evidence that copy protection does not increase sales, and discussed the question of whether ISPs should cut off the entertainment industry over its constant attempts to convince them to engage in censorship — just as a new paper was arguing that ISPs should be made liable for cybercrime efforts, and the Justice Minister in Switzerland decided that ISPs should have to retain data despite no legal basis for forcing them to do so. A court found that Megaupload could be guilty of direct infringement in the Perfect 10 case, but the biggest and most important Perfect 10 ruling from the 9th Circuit said that proving copyright infringement doesn't automatically mean irreparable harm was done. We also saw a major episode in the interminable (and fascinating) Mattel lawsuit over Bratz dolls.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2006, we marveled (and wondered) at the absurd glut of video sharing services appearing (a bunch of them specifically from Time Warner) while YouTube took the world by storm, and also noted the interesting (but likely unimportant) fact that MSN was technically considered the leader over YouTube. There was an early discussion about the influence of Google AdSense policies on journalism, Norway was talking about banning iTunes, and — in a somewhat historic move — AOL finally became a free portal with free email addresses. Also, as expected, Limewire got sued, beginning the first big fight over the inducement standard recently set down in the Supreme Court's Grokster decision.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: July 25th - 31st

from the plus-a-different-week dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2016, the hack of DNC emails was sweeping the news, revealing things that were important regardless of who conducted the hack (and some things that were just plain embarrassing) while we warned against any disastrous overreactions in response. We also highlighted Trump's worrying response as well as a ridiculous tidbit in the backlash from the DNC itself. IsoHunt settled the last of its lawsuits, an MPAA front group was attacking CloudFlare for not censoring the internet, and the TPP was meeting more resistance around the world. This was also the week that Verizon bought Yahoo, and of course it featured a continuation of the Monkey Selfie saga.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2011, governments were engaging in a propaganda war against hacktivist groups, Ron Wyden was pressing intelligence officials about their "secret" interpretation of the Patriot Act while other senators were trying to shift attention elsewhere, and Homeland Security was finally 'fessing up to the latest round of domain seizures. We saw worrying copyright rulings and laws in several countries including Sweden, Sierra Leone, and the UK (which offered up a double) — but perhaps the most concerning was in the US, where a judge put another nail in the coffin of the idea/expression dichotomy by allowing a photographer's lawsuit against Rihanna to move forward. But even more problematic than that was the CAFC ruling in the Myriad case that said individual genes can be patented.

Fifteen Years Ago

Well, this is an unusual one — as I was looking through posts for this section, I got a sense of deja vu, and had a realization: last month, I accidentally messed up the dates somehow and featured posts from this week in the flashback roundup for the final week of June. So you can go check out that link to see what happened this week in 2006, and today I've rounded up a few things that should have appeared in that post:

There were trends of gimmicky WiFi offerings and people blaming Google for their own failures; people were still working to figure out what Nathan Myhrvold was up to with Intellectual Ventures while the Supreme Court agreed to look into the question of patent obviousness; the Sony Rootkit fiasco reared its head again as the makers of a virus that exploited the technology were arrested; we wondered why there was so little honesty in the net neutrality debate, and how Senators who voted against net neutrality could be in favor of the broadcast flag; and we looked at just how little impact the Grokster decision had on the world of file sharing.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: July 18th - 24th

from the as-before dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2016, Cy Vance was still arguing for mandated encryption backdoors with an unconvincing legal argument, while Apple was snubbing John McCain's attempts to drag them in to hear complaints about encryption, and a former Homeland Security advisor was trying to place the burden of proving backdoors are bad on tech companies. An important ruling in California reaffirmed Section 230 protections in a lawsuit against Yelp, a judge smacked down the DOJ for being lazy about fulfilling FOIA requests, and the EFF was challenging the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions on first amendment grounds.

Ten Years Ago

Though there were a few things going on this week in 2011, like the continuing fight over the PROTECT IP Act, it's worth focusing on the story that was infuriating at the time and which we now know was the beginning of a terrible tragedy. This was the week that the feds charged Aaron Swartz with felony hacking for downloading JSTOR articles. The indictment was immediately huge news, and closer inspection raised lots of questions (including the curious lack of a copyright angle to the charges — though that didn't stop the Copyright Alliance from weighing in with a post full of bad analogies). Soon it became clear that the indictment lacked any real legal or moral basis to an extremely troubling degree, and the internet began fighting back by uploading JSTOR articles to file sharing sites. Sadly, this wasn't the end of the story, and there will be more to come in future weeks.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2006, CBS was attempting a desperate strategy of selling DVDs of old news clips, Wal-Mart was making an equally desperate attempt to launch a social media network, and some quacks were claiming that iPods cause autism. A court reaffirmed that the DMCA cannot be used to block third-party repairs, MySpace was struggling to make a profit, and a printer company got in trouble for abusing trademark to block competition. We also saw a rare (in those days, and to some degree still) honest debate about net neutrality, as well as the much-anticipated opening of the floodgates on YouTube copyright lawsuits.

Filed Under: history, look back