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

from the stuff-that-happened dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2012, we were watching as the House of Representatives got ready to move forward with extending the FISA Amendments Act despite huge problems and a worrying lack of information about secret interpretations of the law. Of course, it quickly passed — basically thanks to lots of lying and misrepresentation about what the bill actually contained. Meanwhile, having failed to get new cybersecurity legislation passed, the White House was looking to tackle the issue with an executive order, the draft text of which was leaked at the end of the week. Of course, we were also worried about efforts to make cybersecurity enforcement the job of the ITU, an idea with a whole host of problems of its own.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2007, we were appalled at (and slightly amused by) the pathetic attempts at "innovation" on display in the legacy recording industry, such as the hype around the "ringle" — a combination of a single and a ringtone! Imagine that! Similarly, Universal Music seemed to have gotten the message that subscription services are a good idea, but gotten the details of the implementation entirely wrong. It was also around this time that we started to hear complaints from sound engineers and audiophiles about iPods and earbuds destroying the sound quality of music — though perhaps that was just a way to get press, much like blaming Facebook for destroying the economy. Meanwhile, Prince, unpredictable as always, decided to sue eBay, YouTube and The Pirate Bay for copyright infringement.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2002, the bizarre blanket ban on video games we mentioned last week quickly started to fail in the courts, the battle between China's censors and Google heated up then fizzled out, and a well-known AP writer joined the ranks of people totally misunderstanding the digital music debate. The music industry was doing its best to paint Kazaa and Morpheus as infringers, while Morpheus was seeking summary judgement saying it doesn't violate copyright law. And one on-the-money essay explained how the industry was killing the goose that lays the golden eggs by trying to destroy digital music.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the stuff-that-happened dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2012, as the election drew near, we noted that both the Democrats and Republicans were in deep denial about the need for copyright reform — even as the tide seemed to be turning on bad copyright laws in some other countries. Meanwhile, the copyright takedown game was going nuts as usual, with rightsholders issuing takedowns over content that has been gone for months, and automated bots managing to take down the live-stream of the Hugo awards (for showing clips from an award-winning show) and even the official stream of the Democratic National Convention (with claims from a shockingly long list of media companies).

Ten Years Ago

Ironically for sci-fi fans who couldn't watch the Hugos in 2012, this same week in 2007 it was a sci-fi writers group abusing the DMCA to take down content. Meanwhile, Ridley Scott gave as an interlude from Hollywood's usual complaints about technology being used for piracy (like the MPAA's new crusade against camcording in UK cinemas) to complain about small screens killing the art form. This was also the week that Apple made major updates to its iPod line including the introduction of the iPod Touch, and we noted that the excitement around the technology was itself a good argument against music industry business models.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2002, record labels were actually backing away from copy protection, although their official music download sites were still languishing in obscurity. The industry was fresh off an insane attempt to stop piracy with a lawsuit against internet backbone providers, and Duke University had just received a curious anonymous $1-million donation to fight abuse of the DMCA. This was also the week that Greece passed a somewhat-infamous anti-gaming law that, due to its vague wording, effectively banned all video games.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: August 27th - September 2nd

from the how-many-roads dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2012 started out with us catching up on something that happened late on the previous Friday: the jury in the Apple/Samsung patent trial released a surprise snap verdict that Samsung had infringed. Worryingly, they pretty much admitted that they ignored prior art and other key factors to do so — and the foreman's explanation in interviews showed he didn't really understand prior art to begin with. Of course, the whole thing seemed to be simply demonstrating the viability of Samsung products as an alternative to iPhones and iPads — and as you likely know, just last December, SCOTUS overturned this verdict.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2007, the RIAA managed to score a victory in one of its attempts to get a judge to say that "making available" counts as distribution, and immediately began pushing to spread that ruling to other courts. Viacom got meta in its habit of awful YouTube takedowns by taking down someone's video of a Viacom-owned show airing one of his YouTube videos without permission. Congress was trying to get ISPs to be copyright cops and introduce the nightmare of copyright to the fashion industry. And the first iPhone was successfully unlocked, leading AT&T to predictably and pointlessly lash out.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2002 there were lots of new and emerging things that people were grappling with (though it was not the first freak-out about ultra-violent video games nor would it be the last). There was the realization that becoming suddenly internet famous comes with a cost that not everyone enjoys; there was the attempt to figure out online diploma mills. All those things are pretty pervasive today and no longer new, but here's one that fifteen years later is still an "emerging" trend like it was then: artificial intelligence and its implications. Excitement over AI has crested and dipped for a long time, much like another piece of tech that was in the same post-overhype torpor in 2002 that it appears it might be headed for today: virtual reality.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: Techdirt Was Born!

from the twenty-years-of-techdirt dept

As you likely know by now, we're celebrating Techdirt's 20th anniversary this week. We've got a podcast episode about our history as well as some limited edition gear featuring a revamped version of the very first Techdirt logo:

And today, instead of our usual history round-up, we're taking a look back at the very first post — which was actually not a post originally, but a newsletter, containing a selection of tech news from the week.

On that day — August 23rd, 1997 — there was a fair bit of buzz around the so-called "Internet 2" being built by various universities and researchers, and the first item in the first Techdirt used that as a basis of comparison for a new distributed supercomputing project in California. Next there was a quick list of headlines, with one amusing and notable detail: in describing Apple as a competitor to Microsoft, it was at the time not inappropriate to put "competitor" in irony quotes.

Later, the newsletter includes some predictions. The first was that a new web portal called "Snap!" from CNET would fail — though some news stories from later years suggest it didn't happen quite as quickly as expected, the difficulty I had in finding any information about it today suggests the prediction came true eventually.

The second was right on the money: Mike predicted that Netscape would stop charging for its browser, Communicator. Five months later, not only did Netscape announce that the browser would be free, it launched the Mozilla Open Source project and shared the code with everyone.

The word "meme" hadn't morphed into its specific modern internet meaning just yet, and so under a category entitled Meme Watch the newsletter noted something more in line with the original notion — a particular idea popping up again and again and spreading from place to place. In this case it was the habit of comparing every standards battle in tech (DVD, HDTV, wireless connectivity) to the famous VHS versus Beta showdown of the 1980s. While not a useless analogy, it was certainly overused and oversimplified — and the nuanced nonsense of these standards fights would provide plenty of Techdirt fodder in the years to come.

Finally, the newsletter ends by noting that the FBI had released all its files related to Elvis Presley — yes, though the saga of Elvis and the FBI feels like mostly common knowledge now, it was only revealed in full in 1997.

And that's all for this anniversary week, folks! Once again, be sure to check out our post and podcast about our history, and pick up some original Techdirt logo gear before Sunday, September 3rd!

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the so-it-went dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2012, while Amazon was realizing it had little choice but to get in on the patent portfolio buying game, Google was launching a prior art finder to help stop bad patents — though some worried it might be used by trolls to find targets. Meanwhile, Google also made the controversial decision to start filtering searches based on DMCA notices received by the site, but of course even this wasn't enough to satisfy the RIAA and MPAA.

Also this week in 2012, we launched the Techdirt Insider Shop!

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2007, the proliferation of DVRs and digital video made us ask if the concept of a "TV channel" still made any sense. Of course, the digital video side was still struggling, with all the official offerings pretty much sucking in the eyes of consumers, and with Google Video shutting down and eliminating videos people thought they had bought, and the P2P networks continuing to strive to go legit under the weight of lawsuits,and Universal Music thinking it can still release CDs in different countries at different times (okay that last one is music not video, but still). Given how amazingly well the copyright regime was going for the entertainment industries, is it any wonder the Senate was looking to impose the same thing on the fashion industry?

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2002, we saw one reporter fired for having a blog and another fired after a congressman got mad about an email. Not great.

And now, a brief world tour: South Korea was facing the same tensions over music sharing as the US; Europe was implementing its own version of the DMCA; Indian telecoms were trying to get instant messaging banned; Norway was struggling to find a judge who was tech-savvy enough to try the creator of DeCSS software; and in a story that is rather appropriate given current events, Russia charged an FBI agent with hacking.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: August 6th - 12th

from the it-happened! dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2012, we saw a couple interesting leaks. The fair use text from the TPP was made public, and we discovered (with little surprise) that the US proposals were about weakening fair use, not strengthening it. Meanwhile, a leak of MPAA documents revealed their plans to use sock puppets to smear Richard O'Dwyer, the TVShack operator that the agency was trying to extradite from the UK. And speaking of questionable extraditions, we wondered why New Zealand prosecutors were trying so hard to prevent the release of videos of the raid on Kim Dotcom's home — but were again unsurprised when some portions were released and even NZ police admitted it was "over the top".

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2007, school boards were finally slowly starting to get over their fear about kids and the internet, folks were pushing hard for a ban on all the "internet hunting" that wasn't actually happening, and the New York Times was getting ready to pull the plug on its failed premium paywall experiment, TimesSelect. Meanwhile, in a display that is mostly just sad when you look back on it, Blockbuster bought Movielink from Hollywood for a pittance, hoping it could transform it into a real player in the digital media space.

Fifteen Years Ago

Blockbuster was at it this week in 2002 as well, finally eyeing competition from Netflix (still just a mailing subscription service at the time) and considering launching something similar, while the TV industry was fighting to try to make DVRs useless alongside the introduction of digital TV. We also enjoyed a three part series from Wired about the insane radio dominance of Clear Channel. And we took an interesting look at EULAs, which weren't quite as bad then, as evidenced by the surprise and concern over a new Windows EULA that allows Microsoft to update your system when it chooses.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: July 30th - August 5th

from the as-it-happened dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2012, it was Olympic time — which also means, time to be frustrated with NBC's exclusive coverage. One journalist who was highly critical of the network ended up getting his Twitter account suspended, then eventually reinstated, with the end result (of course) of a massive Streisand Effect. Meanwhile, a leaked document revealed the unsurprising fact that the IFPI had no plans to share any money it got from The Pirate Bay with musicians, the MPAA was hosting movie screenings to get cozy with congress, and for some reason Homeland Security was getting in on the YouTube takedown game.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2007, as had been the case for many years and still is to this day, e-voting machines were found to have terrible security. That particular report came from California, but was quickly followed up by a similar one from Florida, and then a source-code review that also uncovered numerous vulnerabilities. And yet election officials, as always, defended the machines — perhaps because of so many of the officials used to work at the companies that make them?

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2002, people were digging deeper into the many horrors of the bill that would make it legal for Hollywood to hack your computer in its crusade against piracy. Not that this was the only bad internet bill being considered — Congress was also looking into making even more stringent anti-circumvention laws than those in the DMCA. The same DMCA that, the very same week, was being used by HP to threaten security researchers who revealed a vulnerability in their software (though they later backed down). Amidst all this, we were glad to see some attempts to wake academics up to the dangers of the DMCA.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the stuff-that-happened dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2012, we started out by reporting on something that happened late on the previous Friday: the feds admitted that they violated the fourth amendment with their surveillance programs. We noted how Congress had lost all perspective with its moves to prosecute journalists as if they were spies, and that it was worrying how the Senate Intelligence Committee seemed more interested in stopping whistleblowers than figuring out why they blew the whistle. Meanwhile, the ACLU lost a fight to get the courts to recognize common sense and agree that widely published leaked documents should no longer be treated as classified.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2007, the RIAA was continuing its push to get radio stations to pay up for playing music by finding people to claim that radio play makes people buy less music. Meanwhile, a disturbingly RIAA-friendly change snuck into the Higher Education Reauthorization Act, potentially cutting funding from schools that don't filter P2P traffic (but was thankfully pulled soon after). The UK government, amidst various forms of copyright insanity, at least realized that extending copyright durations on 50-year-old songs was pointless. And the EFF kicked off a now-famous legal battle when it sued Universal Music for issuing a YouTube takedown over a clip of a little kid dancing to music.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2002, we saw one of the most insane attempts to prop up Hollywood of them all: a bill that would exempt them from hacking laws in their expeditions to find pirates was introduced in Congress. Meanwhile, the huge uncertainty caused by recent changes to royalty rates was threatening the future of webcasters, leading to a bill being introduced to save them. And a silly Texas company that had turned itself into a JPEG patent troll got some serious pushback from the ISO standards body.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the memba? dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2012, we saw some copyright insanity when BMG issued a YouTube takedown on a Mitt Romney campaign ad for including a clip of Obama singing an Al Green song, and then the next day went on to take down the original clip, because even the President was a pirate in the eyes of the entertainment industry. Thankfully, by the end of the week, YouTube decided the videos were fair use, and restored them. Meanwhile, Viacom was blacking out web clips as part of a spat with DirecTV, leading Jon Stewart to blast them on their own network and get them to reverse the decision for at least some clips. And in New Zealand, the judge in Kim Dotcom's extradition trial spoke out against the TPP and copyright extremism, which forced him to step down from the case (even though the same thing never seems to happen to pro-copyright judges).

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2007, the RIAA finally found itself on the hook for legal fees in one of its aggressive lawsuits, despite its usual strategy of dropping cases whenever that looked like a possibility. The head of an LA news agency who made headlines by being the first person to sue YouTube for copyright infringement decided he might take his misguided fight to Apple as well. The MPAA was speaking out against net neutrality because it might interfere with anti-piracy enforcement, Clear Channel was trying to use the Sirius-XM merger as a reason to get looser restrictions on terrestrial radio ownership, and Microsoft was making promises about future Windows editions as damage control after the poor reception of Vista.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2002, webcasters were appealing the new royalty rates that would cripple them, tech executives were seeking a better starting point for a conversation about piracy with Hollywood, and Universal was doing the kind of thing Universal does and appointing a new "senior vice president of anti-piracy". At least one analyst was looking at broadband adoption in a more positive light than usual at the time, while others were not too sanguine on the future of 3D TV — but we also took a moment to celebrate how it's often unglamorous technology that changes history the most, on the 100th birthday of the air conditioner.

Filed Under: history, look back