This Week In Techdirt History: December 11th - 17th

from the a-look-back dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2011, everyone from Rupert Murdoch and Chris Dodd to sixteen former Judiciary Committee staff who had become entertainment industry lobbyists (hello revolving door!) was pushing to get SOPA passed. At the same time, Wikipedia was explaining in great detail why SOPA hurts the internet, and we heard the first rumblings of the now-famous Wikipedia blackout in protest.

Meanwhile, some creators were smartly focused on being creative and finding new business models: this was the week that Louis CK launched direct-to-fan sales of his latest special via his website, and set the comedy world on fire with its staggering success.

Oh, and Mike published his 40,000th post on Techdirt!

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2006, people were beginning to slowly understand the fact that the iTunes store was just a loss-leader to help boost iPod sales, though several analysts were not quite getting the point. Other stores like eMusic were showing the power of DRM-free music but the record labels weren't listening, and even though folks like Bill Gates seemed to understand the dangers of DRM, they weren't doing anything about it. Meanwhile, the sex.com debacle continued, the Netherlands blazed a trail in switching from analog to digital TV broadcasts, and laptops were beginning their ascent as desktops began their decline.

Fifteen Years Ago

Five years earlier in 2001, some were already calling for the death of the PC industry and its replacement by the next big thing (though that may have been somewhat overstated). NY Times Magazine took a great look at the year's most interesting ideas, though perhaps the most problematic post-9/11 trend was the obsession with finding silver-bullet technological solutions to big problems. Tech was getting smarter, with some of the first forays into music recognition technology and the military suddenly becoming interested in the role of robots in war. (And today we have ContentID and drone strikes...) In slightly more pleasant forms of progress, Apple was realizing that Macs need more games (a problem that is a lot closer to solved today).

One-Hundred And Fifteen Years Ago

Just a brief historical nod this week: it was on December 12th, 1901 that the first transatlantic wireless transmission was received by Guglielmo Marconi at Signal Hill in St. John's, Newfoundland.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: SOPA, China, Dajaz1 & The Hypocrisy Of Copyright

from the a-closer-look dept

Five Years Ago

Today we're dedicating this post to another focused look at the events of this week in 2011, in the midst of the SOPA fight and some other important developments on the copyright and internet freedom fronts that highlighted the government's and the industry's hypocrisy on the issue.

Firstly, the backlash against SOPA/PIPA continued to grow. Anti-virus firm Kaspersky dumped its association with the BSA over the organization's support for SOPA, while the American Bar Association was having an internal fight over how to react to the bills; human rights groups and people with disabilities spoke up to point out how much SOPA could hurt them, constitutional scholars explained why it doesn't pass First Amendment scrutiny, a former White House technology advisor explained the disastrous effect it could have on privacy, and Paul Vixie declared that he would stand against the bills even though they'd probably help his business.

With all this backlash, how was SOPA still standing? For one thing, big media firms were donating plenty of money to the bill's sponsors, and spending plenty more buying astroturf support since the public overwhelmingly opposed them. And surprise, surprise: two congressional staffers who helped write SOPA got comfy industry lobbyist jobs. Plus, there were still plenty of nonsensical and/or hilarious arguments for the bill, and bizarre claims about being able to ignore its worst provisions. When Chinese internet users laughed at the US for considering its own Great Firewall, the MPAA boss shockingly upped the ante by holding China's successful censorship up as a shining example.

And that's where we begin to see the amazing hypocrisy inherent in SOPA, for that very same week Hillary Clinton was speaking out against internet censorship — something the State Dept. has always done alongside the government's ongoing attempts to regulate the internet domestically. And this was also the week that the details of the embarrassingly terrible Dajaz1 domain seizure came out, revealing that the government censored a blog for over a year for no good reason. The site deserved a huge apology, but ICE avoided admitting anything while the RIAA outright refused to apologize and stood by the seizure. Meanwhile, yet another website was in similar limbo: the court dismissed the case against Puerto 80 and Rojadirecta but refused to give back the domain, leaving the company to try to explain to everyone why the seizure was unconstitutional.

Oh and speaking of the RIAA? They were also nosing their way into the Righthaven fight, because I guess their reputation wasn't tarnished enough. And amidst that, just for fun, they also had the gall to claim they already solved the piracy problem years ago.

Give them an inch and they'll take a mile, then publish a press release demanding 10 and fund a "grassroots" organization that calls it half a million inches. Little has changed in five years, and as we approach yet another copyright reform fight, it's good to look back on SOPA and remember how stalwart we're going to have to be.

Filed Under: history, look back, sopa

This Week In Techdirt History: November 27th - December 3rd

from the reflections dept

Five Years Ago

And so the SOPA/PIPA fight continued this week in 2011. The chorus of opposition grew larger: first the New York and LA Times both came out against the bills, then the Wall Street Journal joined them — though the world of smaller publications was way ahead of them; DNS providers, educators and best-selling author Barry Eisler all expressed their serious concerns, and even Stephen Colbert did a segment on the bills.

On the flipside, an ex-RIAA boss was ignoring all criticism and claiming it's just an attempt to justify theft, the MPAA pretended to take concerns seriously but didn't, several tech companies that still supported the bills were being called out for it, NBC Universal was muscling partners into signing "grassroots" support of the bill, a very questionable consumer group released a very questionable pro-SOPA study, and Rep. Lamar Smith attempted to defend the bill by equating infringement with child pornography.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2006, the explosion of YouTube was still causing all sorts of chaos. The misplaced blame game was extremely popular, obviously with copyright and infringement issues but also with weirder things like blaming YouTube for lockpicking videos. Google was trying to pay off entertainment companies to leave it alone, experts were grappling with the liability issues around linking and embedding, and the Wall Street Journal was tragically confused about the copyright issues involved. Meanwhile Wal-Mart was trying to get into the online video game itself, but not exactly knocking it out of the park.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2001, the chaos was around audio, and there was a huge disconnect since new devices like the iPod did not work with new subscription services like Pressplay. Ringtones were becoming the next big thing while a judge with little technical understanding was trying to stop KaZaA, and smarter folks were already pointing out how the industry dropped the ball on digital music. Meanwhile, while Ed Felten was spared the aggression of the RIAA for publishing research on SDMI cracking, another court was upholding the ruling that banned publication of the DeCSS code.

Two-Hundred And Six Years Ago

I've mentioned before that I love a good hoax, and on November 27th, 1810 the city of London was witness to a classic. In order to win a bet that he could make any home in the city the most talked about address within a week, Theodore Hook sent out thousands of letters on behalf of a random house's owner, requesting services and deliveries. The results were utter chaos:

At five o'clock in the morning, a sweep arrived to sweep the chimneys of Mrs Tottenham's house. The maid who answered the door informed him that no sweep had been requested, and that his services were not required. A few moments later another sweep presented himself, then another, and another; twelve in all. After the last of the sweeps had been sent away, a fleet of carts carrying large deliveries of coal began to arrive, followed by a series of cakemakers delivering large wedding cakes, then doctors, lawyers, vicars and priests summoned to minister to someone in the house they had been told was dying. Fishmongers, shoemakers, and over a dozen pianos were among the next to appear, along with "six stout men bearing an organ". Dignitaries, including the Governor of the Bank of England, the Duke of York, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Mayor of London also arrived. The narrow streets soon became severely congested with tradesmen and onlookers. Deliveries and visits continued until the early evening, bringing a large part of London to a standstill.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the short-week dept

Five Years Ago

The SOPA battle rolled on this week in 2011. We took a look at how other parts of the world viewed the bill, as more people began to realize that it was about regulating the internet, not copyright. We gave kudos to the Senators who were standing up against PROTECT-IP, its partner bill and especially to Ron Wyden for promising to read out the names of all the people who opposed it. Even the BSA was changing its tune on SOPA — apparently prompted by the concerns of Microsoft. Meanwhile, the numbers were in: the previous week's anti-SOPA protest was huge (but wouldn't be the biggest).

Ten Years Ago

Record labels were at war with parody songs this week in 2006, with Universal Music threatening Bank of America over a viral video with a U2 parody and EMI targeting some sports fans who wrote parody lyrics to various famous songs — because apparently they think making unreasonable legal demands is a business model. On the flipside, CBS seemed to be realizing that TV show piracy increases viewership and that you can and must compete with free online video. Microsoft was in the middle of its failed attempt to offer the Zune as an iPod competitor, while iPods were embracing video but users mostly weren't — though not because Stephen Spielberg was crotchety about it.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2001, SMS in America took a big leap forward when AT&T finally launched inter-carrier messaging. Nokia, meanwhile, was making early forays into camera phones and MMS on its first phone with a color screen. An early encryption battle was underway, mirroring today's, with Bruce Schneier explaining why backdoors are a bad idea. We took a look at the entertainment industry's ongoing attempts to kill fair use, Amazon was making its transition from store to platform for stores, and the Sega Dreamcast was in its death throes and selling for only fifty bucks.

Twenty-One Years Ago

These days, 3D-animated movies are a dime a dozen and vary wildly in quality. But the first feature-length fully-3D-animated film is almost universally beloved, and it was on November 22nd, 1995 that Toy Story saw general release.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: A SOPA Retrospective

from the memba? dept

Over the past couple of weeks in our look at 2011, SOPA began to rear its head. This week things really hit full steam, and so for this history post we're going to focus just on what went down in the SOPA fight five years ago.

All eyes were on the upcoming House Judiciary Committee hearings, which were stacked 5 to 1 in favor of censoring the internet. Leading up to them, we pointed out how attempts at censorship in the UK demonstrated how SOPA would fail, that Silicon Valley hadn't realized it was in DC's crosshairs, and why all filmmakers should speak out against the bill. Soon, the chorus of voices opposed to SOPA (and its partner PROTECT-IP) began to grow at an astounding pace: Facebook, Twitter, eBay and other big internet companies spoke up, and were joined by over 100 lawyers and law professors and then hackers, the ACLU, consumer rights groups, and human rights groups; venture capitalists explained how it would break the internet, a study showed how it would chill innovation and investment, and the EFF warned about its regulation of VPNs, proxies and other privacy tools; Ron Paul joined the ranks of congressional opposition while SOPA supporter Joe Biden accidentally explained why the bills were un-American; a study showed that the majority of Americans opposed SOPA, and even Canadians were speaking up, fearing collateral damage. And we featured voices ranging from filmmakers and technologists to health care activists explaining the damage SOPA would do.

How did the other side respond? First Amendment expert Floyd Abrams twisted himself in verbal knots explaining how SOPA would censor protected speech but somehow not violate the First Amendment; the House Judiciary Committee denied that its hearings were stacked in any way; Viacom made the absurd and hilarious threat that failing to pass SOPA might mean Spongebob Squarepants dies; and the bill's congressional sponsors weakly tried to say it was going to protect the troops. Then the hearings got underway and were largely a SOPA love-fest, though a lot of Representatives expressed serious concerns.

Meanwhile, we still had more questions: how would we even guage SOPA's success? Do you really want to give China and other oppressive regimes a blueprint for internet censorship? Following the hearings, even more people spoke up: the EU Parliament warned the US against censorship efforts, Nancy Pelosi called for a better solution, multiple Senators came out against PROTECT-IP, security experts warned against DNS filtering, and the Washington Post's Dominic Basulto wrote an incredulous column about the message SOPA sends to the world. It even started to become a congressional election issue, with challengers calling out the SOPA support of incumbent representatives.

And amazingly, as we all now know, the protests had not yet even come close to their peak.

Filed Under: history, look back, sopa

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

from the look-back dept

Five Years Ago

One topic naturally dominates this week's look at 2011, and will for several weeks to come: SOPA. The industry's plan was becoming clear: pretend the bill doesn't say what it says and offer up nonsensical interpretations. Pay no attention to the studies showing it will harm investment and innovation, the fact that it will not solve infringement, the loud voice of Rep. Darrel Issa opposing the voice, the huge censorship concerns summarized in Time magazine, or the opposition of the American Library Association. The House of Representatives certainly seemed to have no problem ignoring all these concerns either. No effort was made to resolve the convoluted language in the bill, and we pointed out that it also massively expands the copyright industries' diplomatic corp. Soon, the internet began planning the first of many protests.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2006, Australia was facing its own copyright reform, but began to smarten up as Google explained how it would kill the internet and the government actually looked into (and debunked) the industry's absurd claims of losses. Meanwhile, much like today, people in the US were discussing what the recent election would mean for various policy issues — in this case, the Democratic takeover of the House in 2006. It actually offered some encouragement, but lots of questions, for areas like copyright policy and telecom policy and net neutrality.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2001, the world was still reeling from September 11th while also preparing for the holiday seasons. These things intersected in the occasional prediction that fear of going to malls would drive shoppers online — but evidence didn't back this up, and besides, there were a lot of other factors in what the e-holidays would bring. As for physical retailers selling high-tech equipment, they were facing their own crisis. Meanwhile, Microsoft was under the anti-competitive microscope and negotiating with the DOJ, while the Hewlett-Packard/Compaq merger met with disapproval from both the Hewlett family and the Packard family.

One-Hundred Years Ago

This week we can note an interesting centennial in the history of technology and politics. On November 7th, 1916, an experimental New York radio station broadcast the U.S. election results in audio for the very first time (they had previously only been broadcast in morse code). Amusingly, this first ever broadcast also called the election wrong, declaring Charles Evan Hughes the winner before signing off at 11 PM, only to find out the next day Woodrow Wilson had actually won.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: October 30th - November 5th

from the sopa-rears-its-head dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2011 we witnessed the true birth of a monster. The PROTECT-IP act morphed into the E-PARASITE act and, realizing how ridiculous that name is, lawmakers began calling it... SOPA. Soon everything went crazy: supporters ranged from Go Daddy (and we all know how that ended) to, uh, firefighters (?) and of course the US Chamber of Commerce and Hollywood astroturf groups like Creative America. Warner Bros. pleaded for support on the basis of poverty despite just having announced record profits, Joe Biden threw his hat into the "pro" ring, and Viacom insisted it wouldn't require changes to the DMCA even as its co-author admitted that was the plan.

But the backlash was quick to form too. We published an open letter to Senator Chris Dodd signed by top VCs and innovators, a White House petition started gaining steam, and the Future Of Music Coalition said it couldn't support the bill in good conscience. Larry Downes published an excellent and thorough analysis of the bill's problems, and even the mainstream press started to catch on.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2006, anonymous rumors were painting an intriguing picture of the deals between YouTube and record labels. The owners of UTube.com, desperate for a way to cash in after a slew of mistaken traffic, tried suing Google for clogging their site by buying YouTube. We took a look at how the DMCA could be abused to shut down critics or really just about anyone, and knew it would be on the rise as online video became big business, with early first steps like Google striking a special ad deal on viral "Mentos and Diet Coke" videos and Hollywood's creative class looking to secure its share of this new market.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2001, people were still amusingly trying to figure out if the iPod would be successful. The market for absurd luxury devices was forming with a $60,000 bejeweled mobile phone. The holes in post-9/11 security theater were already beginning to show. And Google Search unveiled a feature it's hard to imagine life without now: searching by file type.

Sixty-Nine Years Ago

Before the World Trade Organization, there was its prototype: the International Trade Organization, which reigned for almost fifty years from the signing of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade on October 30th, 1947.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the 'memba? dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2011, we saw several examples of companies attacking consumers and/or making their products worse/harder to access. Universal Music started going after the Bad Lip Reading parodies on YouTube, Sony Ericsson shut down an Xperia fan blog that aggressively promotes their products, Hollywood's "kinder, gentler" DRM Ultraviolet was being widely hated upon, and Warner Bros. decided it wanted to embargo DVD sales to libraries for a month.

We also featured our own little historical epic on the site this week: Tim Cushing walked through the many, many technologies that have "killed" the film industry in a trilogy of posts: part one, part two and part three.

Ten Years Ago

The ripples of the YouTube acquisition were continuing to spread this week in 2006. Despite lots of concern about legal issues, it became clear that YouTube's compliance with DMCA takedown procedures were keeping it in the clear (this was long before the rollout of ContentID) and the service was perfectly legal. Meanwhile, Google was building a portfolio of legal wins against smaller claimants as ammunition for when bigger companies came calling. And despite all this supposedly hurting music sales, Weird Al was openly crediting YouTube and the internet with the success of his new album, while folks in Hollywood were realizing that online stars might just represent the next big talent pool.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2001, we saw prototypical versions of fights that would become commonplace in the digital world. Tech companies were opposing an onerous regulatory bill in congress, Microsoft was getting ready to sue a hacker for breaking DRM, and Homestead was ordered by a court to turn over identifying info about its users. Meanwhile, some big products were hitting the market: Windows XP was getting a lukewarm reception (not to mention pushback against its new activation procedure), and as we mentioned last week, Apple officially unveiled the iPod — though folks weren't sure if it was revolutionary enough (a funny notion in retrospect).

Twenty-Four Years Ago

Computer-aided dispatch systems are now the norm for emergency services, and have vastly improved their efficiency — but getting here wasn't an easy road, as one historical example this week demonstrates. The London Ambulance Service in the UK commissioned a computer dispatch system way back in the 1970s, but it sat unused for thirteen years because nobody wanted to switch. The system was replaced but the replacement failed tests. It was replaced again on October 26th, 1992 and the results were a complete disaster that caused huge ambulance delays. The debacle now serves as a popular item of study in the subject of poor engineering management.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the blast-from-the-past dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2011, an interesting copyright question was raised when Warner Bros. bought the movie rights to a story written in a Reddit comment thread, and subsequently stopped the author from continuing to use Reddit, even as it wasn't clear that under Reddit's TOS he would be able to offer Warner Bros. an exclusive deal in the first place. Meanwhile, in a real blast from the past, Bill Gates was called to testify in an antitrust trial about... Windows 95. And Microsoft's views on sure seemed to waver a lot depending on who was in the antitrust hot seat. In congress, Senator Wyden was continuing to fight the PROTECT IP bill while the broader internet clued in on the notion that another bill focused on anti-streaming could make Justin Bieber a felon.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2006, everyone was still trying to parse the implications of Google's acquisition of YouTube, except for politicians who were rushing to blame YouTube for all sorts of things. Universal Music launched a lawsuit against streaming sites but left YouTube out of the list of targets — which became very unsurprising when we learned that Google's new deals with record labels included giving them equity in YouTube. Meanwhile, the Authors Guild lawsuit over Google Books was proceeding just about as slowly as a lawsuit possibly can, the MPAA was doing its best to brainwash the Boy Scouts with an anti-piracy badge, and a tour through the EULA for Windows Vista revealed a hilariously broad term stating that "you may not work around any technical limitations in the software".

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2001, the first inklings of the mass-ditching of landlines in favor of cellphones were spotted. There were also inklings about the death of broadband that didn't pan out quite as accurately. Speaking of technology takeovers, professional photographers were starting to make the switch to digital cameras and (most) retail software stores were struggling to compete with downloads. But in retrospect, perhaps the biggest tech news was a simple and vague rumor portending that Apple was going to launch some sort of non-Mac music device the following week (and fifteen years ago tomorrow, the world would meet the iPod).

One-Hundred And Forty-Seven Years Ago

Hoaxes are a dime a dozen in the internet era, and frankly they are just too easy. But I love a good hoax story from the golden age, and this week we've got one that certainly qualifies: on October 16th, 1869 workers uncovered the Cardiff Giant, a huge "petrified man" forged by an atheist New York tobbaconist in order to win an argument with some Methodists. Scientists quickly realized it was a fake, but theologians who believed giants once walked the earth defended its authenticity. It's still on display in the Farmers' Museum in Cooperstown, and a replica made by P. T. Barnum can be seen in Michigan.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the doomed-to-repeat-it dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2011, a terribly-kept secret was confirmed: the government worked with the RIAA/MPAA to negotiate the "six strikes" system. In Denmark, a judge handed down a crazy reward of 84% of the royalties for a song to the owner of a 10-second sample used therein. In Germany, the Pirate Party was building an impressive base of support, and better ideas about copyright were spreading through the government — even as infamous collection society GEMA was demanding licensing fees for songs it didn't own. And one confused columnist was bemoaning the death of the "creative class" because... nobody works at Tower Records anymore.

Ten Years Ago

If you thought that was a bit late to still be lamenting the death of Tower Records, you're right: five whole years earlier, the same week in 2006, people were doing the exact same thing (at the time it was two months after the company declared bankruptcy). Meanwhile, one movie executive was insisting that shortening release windows is technically impossible, while Intel and Morgan Freeman were continuing to vaguely promise a movie simultaneously released in theaters and online. But the big news of the week was Google's confirmed purchase of YouTube, which spawned all sorts of speculation about the future, and of course an increased rate of lawsuit threats from media companies negotiating licensing deals with the platform.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2001, a hoax story about the death of Britney Spears spawned conversation about how hard it is to figure out what's true online. And indeed a prime example came that very week: we fell for a story about secret meetings between the RIAA and government officials that turned out to be entirely made up.

The hoaxes haven't changed much, but we've upped our scrutiny. As for something that has really changed, get a blast from the past by looking at the 2006 browser statistics: Internet Explorer still dominated with 76% of traffic, and half of people were still surfing at a screen resolution of 800x600.

Thirty-Three Years Ago

In the western world, the first analog cellular network that took hold was the Analog Mobile Phone System, which followed networks deployed in Japan and Scandinavia. It was on October 13th, 1983 that AMPS was commercially introduced in the US, kickstarting the cellphone revolution.

Filed Under: history, look back