This Week In Techdirt History: January 29th - February 4th

from the reflections dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2012, we watched as the reaction to ACTA continued to heat up. Though the opposition was in some danger of straying off course, there were some big developments: the Slovenian Ambassador apologized for signing the deal, the Polish Prime Minister suspended all efforts to ratify it, Bulgarian MPs followed in the footsteps of Polish MPs the week before and protested with Guy Fawkes masks, and widespread protests began to break out across Europe.

Meanwhile, the TPP was also on the docket for the week, with a stark example of crony capitalism presented by the USTR getting civil society groups kicked out of the Hollywood hotel where it was hobnobbing with entertainment industry elites. We pointed out that SOPA/PIPA should be a pretty good lesson on why these negotiations need to be way, way more transparent.

Also, this was the week we released the first Sky Is Rising report.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2007, the world was still reacting to the newly Google-owned YouTube. The plans for revenue sharing with video creators were brewing, and while NBC was embracing the promotional value of YouTube clips, Viacom made its big move of telling Google to yank 100,000 videos off the service, setting the stage for the big legal feud to follow.

Also this week in 2007: Sony BNG reached a deal with the FTC for violating federal law with its horrible rootkit DRM, the RIAA had a SWAT team raid an Atlanta mix-tape producer on questionable legal grounds, Google was offering half-apologies for aiding Chinese censorship, and Adult Swim's now-infamous marketing stunt shut down the city of Boston.

Fifteen Years Ago

Five years earlier in 2002, Google made a much more popular decision when it announced it would not use pop-up ads. Of course, that seems obvious now, as did other things that were fresh at the time, like the convergence of wireless devices and the possibility of having a laptop as your only computer. In the world of secondary effects from the dot-com bubble bursting, we saw Cisco grappling with a huge gray market for used IT products and folks to dropped out to work in tech going back to school to finish their degrees.

Also, because nothing is truly new: folks were commenting on how news was getting less factual and more opinionated.

One-Hundred And Seventy Years Ago

Though not in fact headquartered in the city itself, Techdirt does a whole lot of its business in and around San Francisco — so this week we're marking a milestone in that city's history. It was on January 30th, 1847 that its name was changed from Yerba Buena to San Francisco by Lt. Washington Allon Bartlett.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the post-sopa dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2012 was all about the fallout from SOPA/PIPA, and the pivot to focusing on new battles. The SOPA supporters who own major media networks were somehow complaining they couldn't get their voices heard, while movie theatre lobbyists were continuing to make up facts and a very confused CreativeAmerica was still campaigning for SOPA on the basis of needing it to take down Megaupload — despite that being the other big battle of the week because Megaupload had just been seized without SOPA.

On that front, we saw the chilling effects as other companies began turning off useful sharing services, and began learning interesting tidbits from the indictment. Some artists spoke out in opposition, with Jonathan Coulton tweeting and blogging against the seizure and Dan Bull releasing one of his always-excellent protest songs. But Megaupload wasn't the only battlefront: we also saw the backlash against ACTA begin to build, with the Polish government seeing SOPA-like protests (and calling it "blackmail") followed by that epic moment when Polish politicians in parliament donned Guy Fawkes masks in protest themselves. And as if all that wasn't enough, we also had to contend with the TPP, support of which was laced into Obama's state of the union address, prompting public interest groups to speak out about an upcoming secret meeting on the deal.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2007, the big copyright fight was still over DRM. The RIAA was complaining about how people thought it looked evil, Blu-ray's DRM was rapidly cracked by the same hacker who beat HD DVD, the licensing group behind AACS admitted that DRM is not in fact a meaningful barrier to piracy, and a fight was breaking out over Apple's FairPlay DRM in Norway. On the plus side, we saw a couple positive court rulings, one further defending the right to anonymity online, and another not just protecting but potentially expanding the safe harbor protections of CDA Section 230.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2002 we were still addressing a few more quaint copyright questions, like whether sharing abandonware is piracy. Beset by lawsuits, KaZaa was selling its site and software to an Australian company. Taxis were beginning to adopt GPS, the future of free web email seemed uncertain, PC-based e-voting was being tinkered with, and we got an early glimpse into the iron-fisted secrecy of Apple. Oh, and Techdirt was nominated for a Bloggie award.

Two-Hundred And Sixty-Three Years Ago

This has little to do with Techdirt topics, but it's a fun and interesting fact nonetheless: it was on January 28th, 1754 that Horace Walpole coined the word "serendipity" in a letter to Horace Mann, basing it on an old name for Sri Lanka used in a Persian fairy tale.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: The Slaying Of SOPA

from the a-big-week dept

Five Years Ago

It's time for one more focused retrospective on the events of this week in 2012: the week of the SOPA blackout and a huge victory for the internet. First, we dip briefly into the previous week, where we put out a special Saturday post to report the surprise news that the White House had come out against the approach in SOPA/PIPA. The MPAA responded to this with a bizarro-world statement interpreting it as a sign they could rush the bills through and Rupert Murdoch lashed out at the president on Twitter, while NBCUniversal's Rick Cotton was lying about the bill on MSNBC and Harry Reid was admitting concerns but insisting they must push forward. But the looming Wednesday blackout was gaining steam: Wikipedia officially announced its participation with a tweet from Jimmy Wales, then Google announced that it would join the fray, but not with a full blackout (later revealing a blacked-out logo that drew a lot of attention to its petition page). The Internet Archive (recently declared a rogue site by the entertainment industry) threw its hat into the ring as well, as did gaming site Rock Paper Shotgun and some artists like Peter Gabriel. Even Microsoft, while not joining the blackout, finally made it clear that it opposed the bills in their current form. For our part, we decided that blacking out to raise awareness wouldn't be so helpful on Techdirt where almost all of our readers were well aware of SOPA, and instead spent the day reporting on what was happening.

With all this going on, even before the protest there was talk of the bills being dead — but Lamar Smith quickly made it clear that wasn't the case. He and the MPAA both brushed off the planned blackout as a publicity stunt, and Smith put out a press release announcing the next phase of markup for the bills. On blackout day (Wednesday, January 18th) the denial continued, with the MPAA making the astonishing claim that no "big sites" had joined the protests (Wikipedia, Google and Reddit, anyone?) and Chris Dodd spouting sanctimonious bluster about tech companies turning users into their pawns. A whole bunch of creators signed a letter saying they don't want SOPA/PIPA passed in their names, and soon the blackout began to take effect...

The first one to go was Rep. Lee Terry, who removed his name as a co-sponsor. On the senate site, Marco Rubio followed suit. Then Senators Boozman, Hatch and Blunt and Rep. Quayle, with more and more joining them as the day progressed. The most entertaining response came from Rep. Bruce Braley of Iowa. At the end of the day, we noted that 8-million people had looked up their Representatives' information with Wikipedia's tool, and posted a gallery of all the blackout screens. Senator Ron Wyden, long-time opponent of the bills, thanked the internet but noted that the work was not yet done.

The reaction continued strong into the next day, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell calling for the bill to be dropped all four GOP candidates for the 2012 election said no to SOPA and PIPA. But the most telling responses came from the industries that pushed the bills to begin with: Hollywood studio execs expressed pretty blatant anger at the fact that the government wouldn't stay bought, and the MPAA straight-up threatened politicians who wouldn't stick to its agenda. The RIAA, meanwhile, just condescended to the internet.

On Friday, staunch supporter Marsha Blackburn conceded that it was time to scrap SOPA, and by the end of the day the internet had won: the bills were both listed as "delayed" and both Harry Reid and Lamar Smith announced that they would no longer move forward with them. We analyzed a long interview with Chris Dodd to explain why the industry's approach failed, and then began focusing on what comes next.

But there was no need to look far, because for all the significance of the victory, SOPA/PIPA were also a prime example of winning the battle not being the same as winning the war. Not only did the Supreme Court choose the blackout day to issue the Golan ruling that allowed works to be yanked back out of the public domain — on Thursday, in the midst of SOPA/PIPA chaos, the DOJ went ahead and unilaterally seized and shut down Megaupload and arrested many of the principles, including Kim Dotcom.

They didn't need SOPA to do it. They didn't need anything to do it. Much like the seizures of Dajaz1 and Rojadirecta, they didn't even appear to need especially solid legal footing: at least, they took a whole lot of questionable things as evidence of criminal activity. Some artists like Busta Rhymes spoke out in defence of the site (it being an extremely useful distribution tool) — and then Anonymous struck back with widespread DDoS attacks on entertainment industry websites, prompting some nonsensical free speech complaints from the MPAA and suspicions that the DoJ might have provoked Anonymous on purpose.

As we now know, the arrest of Kim Dotcom was just the beginning of another long fight about the overreach of the US government and the influence of the entertainment industry thereon — and we know that's not the only example of a continued war against the supporters of free culture and an open internet. The internet should still take time to remember and celebrate the defeat of SOPA though, if only because we're almost certainly going to have to do the same thing again, and again, and again...

Filed Under: history, look back, pipa, sopa

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

from the the-gloaming dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2012, plans were coming into place for the SOPA blackout that would happen the following Wednesday. Reddit was the first to announce a site-wide blackout, and the next day they were joined by the Cheezburger network of sites. Then came the announcement that would really shift the tides: Jimmy Wales stated that he was in favor of the blackout, and asked the Wikipedia community to decide.

Meanwhile, it was a big week for SOPA/PIPA supporters being caught infringing content themselves. CreativeAmerica appeared to crib much of a pro-SOPA mass email from Public Knowledge's anti-SOPA equivalent, then offered a denial that inadvertently underlined exactly why SOPA was so dangerous. CreativeAmerica also teamed up with the MPAA to place a pro-SOPA opinion piece in the Salt Lake Tribune, which turned out to be a bit of a remix from the text past lobbying efforts. And then SOPA sponsor Lamar Smith himself was discovered to be violating the Creative Commons license of a photo used on his website.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2007, the big news (especially in retrospect) was Tuesday's unveiling of the Apple iPhone after a flurry of rumors and hype. There was a hiccup when it turned out Apple hadn't yet secured the rights to the name, but as we know the ascendance of the device was unstoppable. There was also a weak attempt to use the iPhone as an example of why patents are necessary, which was much less convincing than the new study showing no link between patents and innovation.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2002, long before the days of SOPA, the DMCA was still a source of real debate — with attacks on the anti-circumvention provisions still showing promise. Apple was fresh off a somewhat-less-revolutionary announcement of a new iMac, and an early leak debacle showed just how tight a relationship they seemed to have with the press. Satellite radio was showing promise, SMS was failing in the US for reasons that were getting boring to hear about, online pizza delivery was becoming a competitive space, and Taser was working on its first consumer model.

One-Hundred And Twenty-Three Years Ago

We've used the example of telephone switchboards many times in talking about how job-destroying innovation can often yield an explosion of unexpected new jobs, and this week we mark a turning point in that piece of history: on January 9th, 1894 the first battery-operated telephone switchboard was installed in Lexington, Massachusetts by the New England Telephone And Telegraph Company.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the new-years dept

Five Years Ago

This week we finally move from 2011 to 2012, but as far as the news goes little has changed: it was all SOPA, all the time. There was growing confusion around which companies actually supported the bill, with some like EA trying to avoid taking a position altogether and others, like some game developers, clashing with their own industry groups like the ESA over how to respond. The ESA was a strong supporter of the bill, and initially had the firm backing of Capcom — but Capcom soon tried to back down and worm its way out of the spotlight. Grover Norquist, a huge supporter of strong copyright law, also tried to get some distance from SOPA and PIPA. Al Gore came out with some thorough and strong opposition, and Senator Ron Wyden was planning a filibuster.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2007, everyone and their brother was jumping on the MySpace-clone bandwagon, with Disney launching a limited and unimpressive platform and even Toyota announcing plans to do the same. A tech company somehow managed to get a patent that basically covered all digital downloads and proceeded to sue everyone, while the RIAA was fighting its own fight to keep its wholesale digital download prices on the hush-hush. The movie industry was still flailing around with even more DRM and an unwelcome addition to the high-def DVD format wars, and we saw the latest crazy attack on YouTube in the form of an accusation that the site aids and abets vandalism.

Fifteen Years Ago

Speaking of DRM, this week in 2002 one congressional representative pointed out that it is probably illegal under a 1992 law — but I guess that idea didn't fly. There was lots of buzz about the future of "interactive television" but that idea didn't exactly soar either. The beginning of 2002 also marked one of only two times in history so far that the number of domain names online had gone down (presumably after cybersquatters and domain prospectors abandoned their domains after the tech bubble burst). And though the technology was still in its early days, folks were beginning to worry about facial recognition software.

Sixty-Three Years Ago

But now here's a real example of technology in its early days. I'm rarely surprised to find out that an area of tech has been around longer than I thought and than you might expect, but I was genuinely surprised to learn that all the way back on January 7th, 1954, IBM used one of its mainframe computers to do the first demonstration of computer translation, taking Russian sentences encoded to punch cards and producing print-outs of English translations. Of course the system was quite simple, the sentences carefully chosen, and the scope extremely limited — but it worked, and placed the first example of such technology much earlier in the history books than I would have guessed.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the christmas-eve dept

Five Years Ago

The anti-SOPA momentum continued to gain steam at an exponential rate this week in 2011. Both polls and wildly successful petitions were demonstrating that Americans across the political and demographic spectrum were opposed to the bill. And the list of high-profile voices realizing SOPA was a bad thing was growing by the day: the cable news networks figured it out, a CBS opinion piece went as far as calling for MPAA boss Chris Dodd to be fired over his position on it, and a Reuters columnist explained why SOPA is a cure worse than the disease. Long-retired political cartoonist David Rees picked up his pen again to oppose the bill, MythBusters' Adam Savage explained why it could destroy the internet, and Ashton Kutcher spoke up as well. Scribd launched a creative and aggressive campaign to educate its users, and all sorts of major internet infrastructure players started coming out of the woodwork to oppose SOPA. And, in a major surprise, the Heritage Foundation broke its pattern of support for the MPAA and opposed the bill too.

Moreover, the bill's supposed "support" was crumbling. Gibson Guitars and several other companies that were listed as "in favor" stated that they said no such thing. Law firms started removing their names from those lists too. And, in a high-profile example of successful public pressure, GoDaddy reversed its position and withdrew all support.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2006, the recording industry was pursuing its more traditional strategy of just suing everyone. The RIAA dropped a case against a mom because it couldn't draw blood from a stone, and turned its attentions to her kids, while a bunch of record labels ganged up and sued Allofmp3.com despite already pressuring Russia into going after the site for them. Meanwhile, with even folks like Roger Ebert calling for eliminating movie release windows and giving customers more options, there was a mixed response from the industry: some folks, like Xbox, were offering actually good video download services, while others like Morgan Freeman (for some reason) were offering crappy competition.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2001, Universal began releasing copy protected CDs in the US to block people from ripping MP3s (or... playing the CDs in Mac computers or DVD players, because that's how you make a good product). A few days later, of course, the protection was easily cracked. Meanwhile, much like 2006's crappy Hollywood-built online movie services, the record industry's new MusicNet and PressPlay offerings were by all accounts pretty terrible, which might explain why music listeners across the board were mostly ignoring them. At least we also saw the seeds of some more successful digital innovations too: people began to notice that Netflix was a strong survivor of the dot-com bubble burst, and rumblings were afoot about selling games for mobile devices.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

Obama Has Saved One Copy Of The Torture Report From Destruction, But What's Going To Happen To The Rest Of Them?

from the 'accidental'-incineration,-probably dept

Even if the White House won't declassify the full CIA Torture Report, at least we know one copy will be locked up in President Obama's archives for 12 years. That prevents Senator Burr and others from making the report disappear completely.

The White House copy isn't the only copy of the report, but at least we know where that one is. Other agencies have copies. Or had them. But they haven't read them. The CIA destroyed its copy of the report -- the sort of "accident" that often befalls damning reports in the hands of the agency targeted by them.

There's another copy sitting further up the hierarchy as well. Or is there? The Defense Department is supposed to have its own copy and as the department the CIA answers to, it should be doing what it can to ensure its copy doesn't disappear.

The Defense Department, however, may or may not have one -- depending on who you ask and when you ask it. Katherine Hawkins of Just Security notes that the DoD's copy -- if it even still exists -- won't be made a part of any public record anytime soon if it can help it.

Last week it emerged that the existence of the Defense Department’s copy is also in doubt. The chief prosecutor at the Guantanamo military commissions, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, repeatedly refused to answer direct questions from the military judge about whether the Department of Defense still had its copy of the report. The Defense Department had acknowledged receipt of the full report in a court declaration in January 2015, and the U.S. government told both a federal court and the military commission judge that it would be preserved.

That was early last year, long before anyone inside the government was asking an outgoing president to declassify the report. That was also long before the Defense Department was having to discuss the existence of the document in court, thanks to the trial of alleged 9/11 attack mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. Mohammed's attorney hinted that the document could very well vanish sometime after Inauguration Day and asked the presiding judge to push the DoD to preserve its copy as well.

Martins, however, refused to make any such promises, much less fully confirm the DoD's copy was still intact.

Nonetheless, asked whether DoD had kept its word and retained its copy, Martins repeatedly evaded the question, and finally replied, “I’m not prepared to answer the question. I can determine if there’s a way to find that information.”

Whatever that means.

Martins may not want the document to become part of the court record. Or it could mean Martins truly has no idea whether the DoD's copy is still intact. Either way, it's clear the Defense Department would rather not acknowledge the document's existence on the record. Fortunately, the judge has ordered the Defense Department to answer the question in writing within the next couple of days.

Hawkins points out that even if Obama doesn't want to declassify the document, he could at least make sure every other government agency with a copy takes care to preserve theirs as well.

Obama could remedy the situation by writing a letter to executive agencies instructing them to open the report and begin reviewing it for lessons learned, and replace any copies that were destroyed. The administration could also withdraw its opposition to detainees’ pending motions seeking preservation of the report as a court record in both the military commissions and habeas corpus cases.

As it stands now, all that has been guaranteed is the existence of a single copy -- the President's. And that one's just going to sit in his archives for the next dozen years, still out of reach of the general public.

Filed Under: cia, cia torture report, dod, history, president obama, torture, torture report

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