This Week In Techdirt History: September 11th

from the yeah dept

So, each week we usually look back at what happened on Techdirt five, ten and fifteen years ago. It's a fun little way to look back at things. But, of course, the "fifteen years ago" this week includes September 11th, 2001. We actually had published five short stories earlier in the morning, before the attacks happened. I know lots of people have their "where were you" on September 11th story -- but mine is pretty simple. I was home in California, asleep in bed. A good friend (who also grew up in NY, but also lived in California at the time) called me and woke me up in the morning to tell me that planes had flown into the towers. I turned on the old TV I had in my bedroom at the time and just lay in bed and watched it for a few hours in horror. I eventually decided I had to write something... but it was just a short post saying that we wouldn't be posting anything else that day. I included a few links on how to donate blood, a site tracking news and a site for people to report if they were okay. The rest of the day I was just numb, wondering what was going on and if everyone I knew back in NY was okay (two of my high school classmates -- one of whom I'd actually gone to school with since 1st grade, and whose early birthday parties I remember attending -- were killed in the attacks).

The rest of that week, I wasn't quite sure what to publish. Being snarky about tech news didn't really seem appropriate or reasonable. We had something debunking a stupid "Nostradamus predicted this" story and then just more posts with basic information about what was happening and how/where some people could help. On the afternoon of September 12th, I finally started to come to terms with my feelings about what happened -- and my initial fears of what was coming next:

Let me be clear. I am angry. The few people who have spoken to me know this. I am angry that there are people in this world who could contemplate, let alone organize, plan, and carry out such a horrendous event. However, I am now scared. Scared about our priorities. Right now our priorites should be helping those who are suffering because of this mess. We should then work on ways to prevent this from ever happening again. Then we can talk about justice. The folks concentrating on revenge right now have their priorities screwed up. I am scared of the reports I am hearing. I am scared of people jumping to conclusions. I am scared of stereotyping. I am sickened by the numerous people I've heard or read blaming the US or their allies for causing this as well. There were some absolutely insane and mad things behind this. I cannot call them human beings. There are some sick and ignorant people cheering these events. They are ignorant. They don't deserve to be destroyed either. Instead, I'm hearing ridiculous reports of people threatening and targeting completely innocent people. I understand that people are looking for folks to blame. That's understandable. But, it's not something that we need to focus on now. And, when we do look for those answers, it only creates additional harm and danger to generalize and stereotype any group of people. As one New Yorker stated, "In Manhattan, we aren't in a state of war, we're in a state of mourning". There is no "right" solution on what to do about this. However, jumping to conclusions and making assumptions is only going to make the situation worse.

And by the very next day, I was (rightly so!) concerned about how this would lead to increased surveillance of the internet. At the same time, I was impressed with how useful the internet had been as a tool for people to communicate during the attack, and enabling people to come together and mourn together. We were also interested in using technology to prevent hijackings. In other words, the same stuff that we often talk about: happy about the power of innovation, but worried about government surveillance and abuse of the technology. Some things never change.

There were a bunch of other posts, as well, many just trying to come to terms with what had happened -- and what it would mean for the future. Much of what we feared did come true. As we now know, the government immediately pushed through a series of bad laws (starting with the PATRIOT Act) while expanding all sorts of surveillance programs. And let's not even start talking about the seemingly random wars, with weak justifications loosely linked back to that one day, 15 years ago. And where has it gotten us? The cool and innovative technology stuff that we talk about is still progressing, but now more and more we need to use it to protect ourselves against the prying eyes of "collect it all" intelligence officials.

We take off our shoes and can't bring water into airports any more. We're constantly told that we're "at war." And I don't feel any safer today than I did that week, 15 years ago. We had a moment -- just a chance -- to rethink how we did things, how we approached the world, and to come together. And instead, we went with the most primal, simplistic response of "let's attack" and "let's spy on everyone." And what has it gotten us?

At the end of each year, I like to write about all the things I'm optimistic about. And, for the most part that sentiment is present during the rest of the year as well. But this week is a depressing reminder of (1) how some people can do amazingly cruel and unthinkable things and (2) how badly we seem to react whenever that happens. It seems like a cycle that only progresses. It would be nice if we could stop it from repeating over and over again.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: September 4th - 10th

from the where-canadians-have-gone-before dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2011, copyright was going crazy in Europe. Even though a smart review of the copyright system there suggested that its purpose was to send as much money as possible to US companies, Europe announced plans to extend copyright terms retroactively and wasted no time making them official. Meanwhile, the leaked State Dept. cables were revealing just how big a role US diplomats play in copyright around the world: guiding the dismantling of online civil rights in Sweden, pressuring Canada to enact draconian copyright law (sometimes even at the behest of Canadian politicians, and acting as Microsoft sales staff in Bosnia.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2006, HP was embroiled in a massive scandal when it was revealed that Patricia Dunn, the chairperson of the board, was spying on other board members and, it soon turned out, members of the media as well, all over some leaked information a few years earlier. Eventually she spoke out publicly, admitting only that it was embarrassing (though really that's just the getting caught part, I suspect). Before that, HP's spokesperson addressed the whole mess by claiming the fraud and identity theft had something to do with "personal integrity".

Fifteen Years Ago

Five years before that in 2001, HP was in the news for the rosier reason of its purchase of Compaq in a $25-billion deal. Meanwhile, there was lots of speculation over who might buy Yahoo! (and as we recently found out, that speculation would have to wait another fifteen years to be resolved), and some back-and-forth on the question of whether Apple should buy Palm, or try to make its own way into the handheld market (and I think we all know how that worked out).

Also this week in 2001: the Justice Department backed down from seeking a breakup of Microsoft, a critical ruling found eBay not liable for pirated goods sold on the site, and despite the death of Napster more people were trading music online than ever before.

Fifty Years Ago

I'm sure I'm not the first to tell you that this week was the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, one of the greatest television franchises of all time. But as a Canadian I might be the first to tell you/brag about one lesser-known fact: though September 8th is when the first episode first aired on NBC, up here north of the border we actually got it before you — the very first airing of The Man Trap was two days earlier on CTV.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: August 28th - September 3rd

from the relevant dept

Five Years Ago

Today, we're just going to focus on one thing that happened this week in 2011, since it bears relation to the discussion raging around our Copying Is Not Theft t-shirt and, specifically, the "threats" we regularly receive that people are going to copy it or other Techdirt content to teach us some kind of lesson. As we've always stated in response, we're totally fine with people copying our material as we consider it all to be public domain — and there are really only two caveats. The first is that we don't approve of copiers claiming to be affiliated with us when they're not, and the second is even more serious: we definitely don't approve of other people trying to exert control over our public domain content by claiming their own copyright on it. And that's exactly what happened this week in 2011 when Gregory Evans of LIGATT Security copied a Techdirt post in one of his "books" that was actually just a compilation of articles. As we said at the time, we (unlike almost everyone else he copied) are fine with our articles being used in a book without permission — but we were not fine with the fact that he also included a prominent copyright notice for all content in the book. Copying is one thing; copyfraud is another.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2006, as the iPod-loving world was still coming to terms with the horrors of the Foxconn factory, the company was busy trying to destroy the lives of the bloggers who exposed conditions there — only to back down when faced with a global storm of terrible publicity. The RIAA, meanwhile, was following the MPAA's lead and trying to fill schools with pro-copyright propaganda "education" (not to mention continuing to insist that it should be allowed to rifle through people's hard drives). And when you can't get the people to agree with you, just fake it — like the recording industry did in Canada with a questionable survey showing that apparently Canadians were desperate to pay bigger copyright levies on blank CDs.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2001, music companies were still struggling to get consumers interested in buying downloadable music, and the real insight and projections came from looking at how college kids were reacting to new digital entertainment offerings. But at least the industry got happy news when the Copyright Office declared that there's pretty much nothing wrong with the DMCA (uh, sure...). Ebooks were also failing to take off, and at least part of the cause was onerous anti-piracy techniques that rendered them less appealing. Of course, while the copyright industries were still struggling with the internet as some sort of new and confusing phenomenon, to the public it was already becoming just another mundane part of life.

One-Hundred And Seventy-One Years Ago

The oldest continually published monthly magazine in the US, and a long-time source for coverage on technology and innovation, is Scientific American — and it was on August 28th, 1845 that it published its very first issue:

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: August 21st - 27th

from the earth-tremors dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2011, the mainstream press was waking up en masse to the fact that the patent system was terribly broken, with even the Wall Street Journal joining the fray. The patent system was, of course, getting in the way of health care, and attempts to convince Silicon Valley that software patents are great were unsurprisingly unsuccessful. Amidst all this the most notable patent battle going on was, of course, the one between Oracle and Google — and this was the week that we got our first whiff of the side-fight over API copyrights that would end up becoming so important.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2006, we had several early discussions about things that would grow to become major subjects of concern. There was the fact that content takedown laws were sneaking censorship into the traditionally censorship-proof internet; there was the RIAA following in DirecTV's footsteps and starting to automate the process of sending out mass copyright shakedown letters; and perhaps most perniciously, there was the quiet fallout of a Supreme Court ruling that told courts not to rush to issue injunctions over patent infringement: companies began exploiting the now-well-known "ITC Loophole" to route around the courts and ban a competitor's imports. Meanwhile, we all waited to see who would buy YouTube, and the platform's recent MySpace-esque branded offerings led us to incorrectly speculate that News Corp. might be the answer.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2001, Windows XP was beginning its takeover of the PC scene. Bluetooth was all the trendy rage, but some were declaring it dead on arrival while others defended it — not that the world's wireless visionaries really had any idea what to expect (except, perhaps, more wi-fi security breaches). Oh, and remember when computers only came with one little branded sticker on the outside, proudly declaring the Intel processor and nothing else? That all started to change this week when IBM adopted the same strategy and opened the floodgates.

One-Hundred And Twenty-Eight Years Ago

Adding machines have a history that dates back to the 17th century, but they didn't really become useful and popular until the late 1800s. One of the two main trailblazers was the machine patented by William Seward Burroughs on August 25th, 1888. His company would go on to become what we know today as Unisys — and his grandson would become an author who helped define the beat generation.

Filed Under: history, look back

Newspaper Archive Disappears From Google, Because Company Wants To Cash In

from the all-about-the-money dept

Another day, another case of copyright being used to lock up information, rather than make it more accessible. In this case, it's the news archives of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, according to an interesting piece by Henry Grabar over at Slate. A decade or so ago, the newspaper partnered with Google to digitize all of its archives and make them publicly accessible.

The archive had initially been made available on Google around 2008 as part of the company’s effort to digitize historical newspapers. That project ended in 2011, but not before Google had scanned more than 60 million pages covering 250 years of history’s first drafts. Those newspapers have remained publicly accessible, and serve both professional historians and home genealogists.

When the Milwaukee project began, Google used microfilms from the papers that had already been uploaded to the ProQuest research database. Because some things were missing from ProQuest, the Journal-Sentinel asked the Milwaukee Public Library to help out. The library let the company digitize decades of microfilms to bulk out the digital archives.

The article notes that another company, named Newsbank, also has a deal with the Journal-Sentinel to digitize and archive its papers, and tried to get the Milwaukee Public Library to buy access to its database. The library found the offerings way too expensive (it was almost the entire amount of the library's materials budget). Newsbank decided that part of the problem was that the stuff was also available for free via Google, so it got the Journal-Sentinel to get Google to take down the archive that it had helped create, with help from the library.

Then, in August, Newsbank let the other shoe drop: According to Urban Milwaukee, Gannett—which purchased the paper in April—asked the Journal-Sentinel to ask Google to remove the paper’s digital archives, which the company did. It’s harder to sell a product when it’s being given away for free, after all.

So now the digital archive that the Milwaukee Public Library had helped Google and the Journal-Sentinel create, is no longer available, because another company wants the MPL to pay a significant percentage of its operating budget to access the same material.

What’s different about Milwaukee is that the city is being asked to buy back something it already had—and, in the case of the library’s digital scans, had even helped build.

The library has said that it plans to have the new archive available for people soon -- but it likely won't be free any more. Perhaps because it now needs to pay to get access to the same database it had helped create. Remember when copyright law was supposed to be about furthering knowledge and learning -- and not locking it up so that one company could extract all profit from it?

Filed Under: archives, copyright, culture, history, news
Companies: google, milwaukee journal-sentinel, milwaukee public library, newsbank

This Week In Techdirt History: August 14th - 20th

from the time-passes dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2011, the MPAA got hilariously and incoherently angry about a GigaOm post pointing out that file sharing continues to grow. After we criticized their response, they came back yet again with a string of empty "sharing is theft" arguments — and TorrentFreak couldn't help but notice that some of the criticisms applied to similar things the MPAA itself had said not long before.

Meanwhile, police were busy hating photographers — both those that film the police themselves and those that take snapshots of things with, uh, no aesthetic value... apparently. Some people were defending the UK's attempts to fight riots by shutting down social media, as UK cops got in on the act by shutting down a social-media-organized... water gun fight. All the while, new research showed that trying to stop protests with internet censorship just creates more protests.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2006, the RIAA was oh-so-friendly when it decided to delay one of its lawsuits by 60 days. Why? The target of the lawsuit died, and the agency wanted his family to have some time to grieve before they were deposed. After this got a bunch of (negative) attention, they actually had the gall to use the phrase "abundance of sensitivity" when they caved and dropped the lawsuit outright. Hollywood was continuing to drive file sharing further underground, there was a copyright fight over copy protection on VHS tapes, and Jack Thompson was demanding a pre-release copy of the new game Bully so he could pre-emptively freak out about it (even more than he already had).

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2001, a group of judges who recently objected to monitoring software on their computers were rebuffed, a group of Mac-loving students rebelled against their school's choice to go PC, and a Thai newspaper started flipping out about the generalized (and mostly made-up) dangers of computers in general. Though pop-ups were already a target of general hatred, the notion of full-length TV-style video ads on websites was a novel and questionable one (with the hatred already clearly visible on the horizon). And one company was out there bizarrely trying to help people copyright their DNA to protect against unwanted cloning.

One-Hundred And Thirty-One Years Ago

When we talk about patent history here on Techdirt, we're usually pretty focused on the US, but this week we can mark an important date for Japan's system. On August 14th, 1885, Japan granted its first seven official patents under the well-named Patent Monopoly Act. Number 1 was for anticorrosive paint, and numbers 2-4 were for tea processing machines.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: August 7th - 13th

from the slightly-shorter-than-usual-edition dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2011, London was caught in widespread rioting, and naturally some officials were quick to place the blame squarely on... BlackBerry, since messaging and Twitter were being used to incite and organize rioters. One MP went as far as to call on BlackBerry to shut down its messenger service (as if that would help), and then Prime Minister David Cameron decided it might be good to ban suspected rioters from social media. They sure did handle it well, huh?

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2006, Sony was continuing its proud tradition of utterly failing when it comes to DRM, this time deciding to delay the launch of the audio/video download store for the PSP because they couldn't implement the copy protection in time. All the customer backlash against bad DRM seemed to be prompting other DRM-pushers to start changing their story. And then of course there was the battleground for the next generation of DRM media: the fight to replace DVDs with a new emerging standard was just heating up (and would evolve into the Blu-ray/HD-DVD wars, and eventually today's Blu-ray supremacy).

Fifteen Years Ago

Five years before that in 2001, copy protected CDs were a relatively new idea and it was still unclear how pervasive and protected they were. Meanwhile, the DOJ was starting to investigate the online music services that the recording industry set up (in the wake of said industry's destruction of several independent online music companies). We also saw a decision that would change the face of two giant brands: a judge told the World Wrestling Federation that it had to stop using "WWF", and hand wwf.com over to the World Wildlife Fund.

Seventy-Two Years Ago

Some of the earliest computers were put to work in World War Two, and among the most famous is IBM's Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator — better known as the Harvard Mark I, after it was officially presented to the university on August 24th, 1944. It was described as having "brought Babbage’s principles of the Analytical Engine almost to full realization, while adding important new features."

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: July 31st - August 6th

from the the-more-things-change dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2011, we saw the surprising ruling that MegaUpload could be guilty of direct infringement in a lawsuit brought by Perfect 10. Another court shut down online movie rental site Zediva, establishing the bizarre fact that the length of the cable apparently makes a difference when it comes to infringement. On the flipside, in another Perfect 10 case, we got the excellent and important ruling that copyright infringement doesn't automatically mean irreparable harm.

In the UK, the copyright world was in flux following the Hargreaves Report, with the UK Business Secretary stepping up to back many of its recommendations and even go beyond them. Soon, the UK announced surprisingly good copyright plans based on the report — though it didn't address ridiculous copyright term lengths. At the same time, BPI was using a ruling against Newzbin2 to push for much broader copyright censorship powers, while the UK's pioneering copyright trolls were facing sanctions.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2006, inspired by the success of YouTube, the big media companies were racing to crowd the market for video sharing platforms with their own official offerings, creating a huge mess. MSN was actually a leader in the online video space, but it wasn't clear if that really mattered. DVRs were sort of changing how much TV people watch, and digital filming was changing how actors act.

Also this week in 2006: Norway was considering banning iTunes, Germany was trying to stop software resale, and a Minnesota ban on selling video games to minors was declared unconstitutional; the music industry was ironically starting to see CDs as a threat while also trying to sell people music on DVDs for some reason; and, following a semi-victory in the Grokster decision, the RIAA officially commenced its legal action against Limewire.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2001, the music labels were excited about their new digital music plans even though it was easy to predict that they wouldn't work out that well. Of course, popular piracy alternatives had big problems too, such as KaZaa installing browser-hijacking adware as a business model and leading to an awareness of the plague of "parasite-ware". DVRs were already changing people's viewing habits back in 2001, and one company was already working on a 3D television — except it turned out to be a complete hoax.

Three-Hundred And Thirteen Years Ago

We often talk about free speech and satire around here at Techdirt, so this week let's look back at an iconic moment in the history of those concepts. It was on July 31st, 1703 that novelist and pamphleteer Daniel Defoe (of Robinson Crusoe fame) was arrested and put in the pillory for distributing a satirical pamphlet, on charges of seditious libel. Legend has it the people pelted him not with fruits but with flowers — but the truth of this is shaky at best.

Filed Under: history, look back

Techdirt Reading List: The Copyright Wars: Three Centuries Of Trans-Atlantic Battle

from the it-never-ends dept

We're back again with another in our weekly reading list posts of books we think our community will find interesting and thought provoking. Once again, buying the book via the Amazon links in this story also helps support Techdirt.

Sometimes when you're focusing on the latest fight over copyright, you forget that the same battles have been fought over and over and over again. Peter Baldwin's book, The Copyright Wars: Three Centuries of Trans-Atlantic Battle does a really great job of highlighting how we're seeing the same battles play out over and over again. We've seen this before -- when we wrote about The Idealist, a book mostly about Aaron Swartz, the first half is really about historical copyright battles, which are incredibly similar to today's battles.

Baldwin's book goes into even more detail on centuries upon centuries of battles around copyright law -- what it's for, what it's designed to do and the inevitable tensions it runs into as modern technology changes. It also highlights how some of the battles are really cultural and national battles -- with ideas around openness and sharing stemming more from the American side, while the stronger focus on making copyright solely about protecting creators coming from a more European tradition. This shouldn't be a huge surprise -- things like the Berne Convention which massively expanded copyrights came from a European push and the US was very late in adopting it. But sometimes people get so focused on the expansion of copyright driven by the US film and recording industries that we forget that they were simply co-opting ideas from Europe. Either way, it's an excellent read to put more of our copyright wars into context.

Filed Under: copyright, history, pater baldwin, reading list, techdirt reading list

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

from the changes dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2011, we saw a variety of studies and other sources pushing back against the common "wisdom" on copyright and piracy. People were beginning to point to the signs that weaker copyright can encourage cultural output, that piracy can actually increase the quality of content, that pirates are the best consumers, and that file sharing is good for artists.

Of course, on the flipside, we saw the idea/expression dichotomy gutted when a judge allowed a photographer to sue Rihanna. PayPal agreed to help cut sites off at the behest of the IFPI, a UK court ordered a telecom to block sites at Hollywood's behest, and the music industry was pushing for infringement red flags in Google search results.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2006, Kazaa began walking down the Napster road of going straight (and becoming irrelevant). Meanwhile Metallica, author of Napster's destruction, was finally accepting that fans want music online, and entering the iTunes store. TorrentSpy was trying to fend off Hollywood, the RIAA was dropping cases over the fact that an IP address is not a person, the industry was cracking down on karaoke bars, and amidst so much dastardly piracy, the Pirates of the Caribbean sequel was still thriving. YouTube was changing the way people interact with television, and gimmicky technology was changing the way people interact with a game of Monopoly.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2001, still fresh off the heels of Napster's destruction, it was bizarre to see Metallica's website boasting about their love of "sharing" music. Some people were predicting that all the Napster copycats cropping up in its wake would soon be dead thanks to more effective copyright schemes (and though many of the clones did die, music piracy lives on...) The folks in DC were apparently very happy with the DMCA despite its increasingly obvious problems, most notably last week's arrest of a hacker that went over so poorly Adobe started backing down. But perhaps the most noticeable way technology was changing the entertainment industry was naturally, from the inside out: a lot of cliche movie plots were rendered nonsensical by things like cellphones, and TV news and sports broadcasts were undergoing a drastic webification.

Seventy-Six Years Ago

There's a lot of talk about Mickey Mouse in the copyright world, but this week we can celebrate a competing character who also evades the public domain thanks to copyright extension: Bugs Bunny, who was introduced in the short A Wild Hare on July 27, 1940. (The all-time classic Bugs short What's Opera, Doc? would have entered the public domain two years ago were it not for the 1976 Copyright Act.)

Filed Under: history, look back