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

from the that-thing-that-happened dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2015, MPAA emails revealed a plan for an anti-google smear campaign run through the Today Show and the Wall Street Journal, Sony/Soundcloud pulled out the copyright takedown hammer over entries in an official remix contest, a UK court ruling flip-flopped on CD ripping for personal use, and we joined IMDb and Reddit in getting hit by a bogus DMCA takedown from a German film distributor — though this wasn't the dumbest takedown of the week, with a company representing Universal Pictures managing to accidentally DMCA the localhost IP address. Meanwhile the UK police admitted to investigating journalists for covering the Snowden leaks, the New York Times falsely claimed ISIS was using encryption and couriers because of Snowden, and a judge ordered the CIA to pay the hefty legal fees of a FOIA requester.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2010, the US Copyright Group was moving to phase two of its lawsuit shakedown plan, human rights groups were speaking out about the huge problems with the USTR's "special 301" process, and America's IP czar was pointing fingers at China. A Dutch court upheld the ruling that The Pirate Bay must block Dutch users while the Pirate Party in Sweden was launching its own "Pirate ISP", a Canadian court let Perfect 10's latest case against Google move forward, and the BSA was using totally made up stats to try to change copyright laws in South Africa. Meanwhile, we wrote about how weak anti-SLAPP laws don't help anyone, while the Senate in the US passed the SPEECH Act to shut down libel tourism.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2005, the Associated Press was blatantly misrepresenting BitTorrent, while News Corp was buying in to sketchy adware. We wrote about how the recording industry believes what it wants to believe, and asked why public schools should be doing copyright dirty work for entertainment companies. A silly but unsurprising backlash emerged against mobile phones due to their possible use by terrorists, while rumors were brewing about the iPod Video, even though most people still weren't sold on mobile video as a concept. And voters in Louisiana saw through telco threats and FUD, and voted for a muni fiber network.

Filed Under: history, look back

Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the comments-aplenty dept

This week, our first place winner on the insightful — also racking up quite a lot of funny votes — is Nick-B referring Trump supporters to another recent post:

Looks like we need a *"Hello! You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 512 of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act"** article.

In second place, it's Rocky responding to someone offering up a predictably silly rant about social media censorship and "the point of ffree speech":

Please provide an example of your position that you can't discuss on Facebook and Twitter.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start with Toom1275 offering an explanation of the phrase "divergent views on COVID-19":

Translation: Pseudo/antiscientific bullshit

Next, it's Stephen T. Stone facing down someone who insists it's wrong to dismiss videos from Project Veritas and one should "judge the clips on their own merit":

When the people presenting those clips have a documented habit of editing the clips to mislead viewers, we will judge both. Deal with it.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is BentFranklin who couldn't resist an observation about one of the Techdirt posts recently demonetized by Google:

Sorry, I giggled when I saw that talking about tasers is "shocking content". I will go sit in the corner now.

In second place, it's Timlash taking a moment to celebrate the firing of some truly awful cops:

Whew

I'm glad we finally got rid of those few bad apples. Done and done.

For editor's choice on the funny side, we've got a pair of comments about Parler. First, it's crinisen aptly summing up the apparent image the site wants to project:

If I'm understanding it, Parler is working hard to become the space space for people who think the existence of safe spaces are a symptom of everything wrong with this country....

Finally, it's an anonymous comment focusing on the site and its supporters' bizarre obsession with blocking one particular type of content:

I miss the days when shitposting wasn't literal.

That's all for this week, folks!

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: June 28th - July 4th

from the it-can't-unhappen dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2015, a missing document from the FISA court docket suggested that there was yet another undisclosed bulk records collection program hiding somewhere, while newly-released Wikileaks documents revealed that, despite its denials, the NSA was engaged in economic espionage, and a fresh FISA order authorised "as-is" phone recrod collections for the next six months. Just like today, the FBI was on an anti-encryption streak, fearmongering about "going dark" despite actual wiretaps almost never running into encryption. And the MPAA was launching another ad campaign against piracy... targeted at paying customers, for some reason.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2010, we looked at the list of ten questions for ACTA negotiators that were being taken to a meeting in Sweden, and unsurprisingly got more of the same old stuff for answers. We looked at an economic analysis of the Viacom/YouTube decision, and then at the new important ruling of the week: the Supreme Court's narrow take on Bilski, which let business method and software patents survive while leaving the door open for future cases that might change things — all of which required a bit of tea leaf reading to determine what the court was truly thinking about software patents.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2005, the Supreme Court issued its expected rulings in both the Grokster and BRand X cases, with a mixed bag of results — while former RIAA boss Hilary Rosen suddenly realized this kind of fight was probably harming the RIAA's future. A Taiwanese court ruled that file sharing software is perfectly legal, while Sweden's terrible file sharing law went into effect. Meanwhile, AMD resurrected its antitrust attack on Intel, and took out a bunch of ads to make its case to the public, though we wondered if the public would actually care.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the as-I-recall dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2015, the Sunday Times in the UK was doubling down on its widely criticized article in which it parroted the government's talking points, while the GCHQ was in trouble for illegally holding onto emails (but not for collecting them in the first place). New documents released by Wikileaks revealed that the NSA had been spying on French presidents (which France was not happy with, even though it was moving to do more spying of its own), while the FISA court was tackling questions about Section 215 surveillance. We also learned about Google being gagged for four years from talking about fighting the Wikileaks investigation, including some ridiculous redactions required by the DOJ.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2010, a closely-watched lawsuit about the "hot news doctrine" was drawing interest from across the board, with Google and Twitter weighing in to oppose the return of the doctrine while a huge group of newspaper publishers were predictably taking the other side, and internet rights groups were stepping in to tackle the First Amendment issues. We saw an extremely terrible ruling in the Golan case saying it's okay to remove content from the public domain, and another very good ruling with the court smacking down Viacom in its lawsuit against Google (which left Viacom in denial).

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2005, the MPAA was refusing to give up and making yet another attempt to get the Broadcast Flag enshrined in law, while at the same time embarrassing itself with wild overhype about shutting down a DVD processing plant — which it tried to explain away by claiming it was calculating projections of future piracy. Politicians in the EU were making it clear that they really didn't understand software patents, but were moving forward with them anyway, while the US Register of Copyrights was proposing major changes in copyright law. We also saw the start of yet another important appeal about the DMCA.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the and-so-on dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2015, we saw some hall-of-fame FUD about Edward Snowden from the Sunday Times in the UK. The piece was rapidly trashed by Glenn Greenwald, leading News Corp. to abuse the DMCA in an attempt to hide the criticism. Facing ongoing scrutiny, the reporter who wrote the piece eventually admitted that he just wrote down whatever the government told him, and the editor doubled down on this suggesting that any questions about the story should be directed to the government. Meanwhile, Bruce Schneier was making a much more reasonable point about the same core issue: that Russia and China probably have the Snowden docs, but not because of Snowden.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2010, we looked at yet another example of how ludicrous it is to expect YouTube to magically know which videos are infringing, while Rapidshare was countersuing Perfect 10 over copyright trolling, and music publishers were trying to pile on the already-dead Limewire. The Hurt Locker producers were deep in their copyright shakedown scheme, while at the same time touting their free speech rights against the soldier who claimed they used his life story. One ISP tried to get very creative and charge users to block file sharing to avoid copyright strikes — and ended up installing malware that broadcast their private information. Meanwhile, long before today's ongoing dust-up that is drawing everyone in, we covered an earlier conversation about "fixing" Section 230.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2005, we saw the latest in a long string of reports urging the recording industry to embrace file sharing, while some people were working on yet another pipe-dream of universal DRM, and libraries were developing their systems for limiting the use of digital materials as though they were physical. Amazon was trying to patent more basics of e-commerce, while a patent troll reared its head with a 1998 patent that appeared to cover transmitting any information over a network, at all. And we saw the clearest death-knell for the VCR when Wal-Mart announced it would stop selling VHS movies.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the that-was-that dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2015, legislators were working to take money from the DEA to buy bodycams for cops and calling for mandatory data collection on police shootings, while we took a look at the way (even with cameras) cops and the media cooperate to disparage victims of police violence and paint every kill as a "good" kill, and how law enforcement stretches the definition of "reasonable suspicion" to cover just about everything and make the 4th Amendment useless in lots of cases. Meanwhile, there were efforts to shut down bulk phone record collection during the transition to the new USA Freedom Act, but the DOJ had different ideas and the House Intelligence Committee was working to block the Privacy & Civil Liberties Board from doing its job. Canada, in the mean time, passed its own "anti-terror" bill to take away civil liberties.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2010, we saw a terrible court ruling that said forwarding a link can be considered defamation, while the UK was considering a new libel law that was a mixed bag at best, and Andrew Cuomo kicked off his recently-announced campaign for Governor of New York by threatening to sue a social network for its users' actions. Meanwhile, many targets of the US Copyright Group's shakedown scheme were claiming their innocence while another law firm that tried to get in on the racket was suing Wordpress over critical blogs. We debunked the ludicrous idea that pirated handheld games have cost the economy $41.6-billion, and the idea that the RIAA is a success, and also pointed out how Hollywood's constant copyright lawsuits were at odds with its celebration of rampant copyright infringement in the show Glee — nearly as hilariously ironic as the New York Times getting confused about its own RSS feed and ordering takedown of an iPad RSS reader.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2005, we saw an early case of an artist being shut down for offering torrents of their own content, while the UK's new Creative Minister was fighting to expand copyright to stop Elvis Presley songs from hitting the public domain, Sweden's private recording industry police got a wrist-slap for breaking the rules, and the press was patting itself on the back for parroting the recording industry's misleading statements and studies. And always-on-the-ball Sony was repeating its mistakes with the Aibo robotic dog when it came to the PSP, by doing everything possible to block hackers and modders from making the device more useful.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: May 31st - June 6th

from the history-hasn't-stopped dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2015, one court was apparently forgetting the First Amendment exists while ordering a newspaper to delete an article, while the Supreme Court was punting on an important 1A question. The USA Freedom Act was marching forward with Mitch McConnell trying to destroy it with amendments with all failed. The House passed an amendment on another bill, in order to block funding for undermining encryption, while on top FBI official was claiming that preventing encryption should be the first priority of tech companies.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2010, a Michigan politician was trying to regulate journalists and choose which ones are trustworthy, while the FTC was trying to "save journalism" but only in the form of old newspapers, and a Senator in France was trying to outlaw anonymous blogging. Copyright trolls were teaming up and getting cooperation from Verizon.

Meanwhile, while on court was giving border patrol permission to take people's laptops, we took a look at how cops and courts abuse wiretapping laws to arrest people for filming the police.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2005, we learned about the startling lengths copyright defenders would go to, such as the recording industry operating private round-the-clock surveillance of the owner of Kazaa and the MPAA pitching in to help fund surveillance cameras in downtown Los Angeles. We were also seeing some early battles and tactics around manipulating Google's memory of the past, and the emergence of citizen journalism happening in the comments sections of newspaper websites.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the week-by-week dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2015, the backlash was coming in to the appeals court ruling that put a dent in NSA surveillance, with politicians crying foul in response as they hoped to spy on more Americans, while the EFF saw the ruling as reason enough to withdraw its support for the now-worse USA Freedom Act — which nevertheless overwhelmingly passed the Housea big fight in the Senate. Meanwhile, a new "he forgot about it" excuse appeared regarding James Clapper's lies, while the government was showing off its inconsistent treatment of leakers and whistleblowers.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2010, music publishers were still trying to squeeze cash out of lyrics websites, the RIAA successfully got a court to rule that LimeWire was guilty of contributory infringement, and the producers of The Hurt Locker were gearing up for their infamous barrage of copyright lawsuits. A brief in the Viacom/YouTube trial tried to rewrite the DMCA, while Brazil rejected the idea of its own DMCA-style notice-and-takedown system.

This was also the week that the freshly-launched "Humble Indie Games Bundle" was blowing up the charts (I actually missed the launch of the bundle the previous week, because we covered it with such a low-key headline when it still wasn't clear how big a deal it would become). By the end of the week it had hit a million sales and it was starting to become clear that it was a big deal, though few might have guessed it would still be going strong today.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2005, the Senate passed the Iraq appropriations bill that also had a tacked-on problem in the form of the Real ID Act, which looked likely to end up making identity theft easier, and immediately became the target of brewing legal challenges. Following the FCC's recent rejection of the broadcast flag the previous week, the MPAA was looking to legislate it back into existence, while a minor ruling in the Napster investment lawsuit included an important detail about what qualifies as "distribution" for copyright purposes. And it was starting to look like there might be a little resistance among federal agencies to the idea of being Hollywood's personal copyright cops.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the and-then-and-then dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2015, the big fight between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao was overshadowed in some circles by the resultant fight between Hollywood and Periscope streaming, which quickly led to a worryingly broad restraining order. Meanwhile, the new IP Czar kicked off his tenure with a very concerning speech, the EU was examining whether linking to infringing material is infringing, and Keurig was cautiously backing down from its foray into coffee DRM. We also saw an important win in one appeals court with a ruling that the NSA's bulk records collection was not authorized by the PATRIOT act, but a loss in another circuit with a ruling saying that warrantless phone tracking falls under the third party doctrine and doesn't violate the 4th amendment.

Finally, in the midst of a lockdown, while Fortnite launches a no-combat mode and folks who play Animal Crossing are engaged in a sweeping economic drama over the price of virtual turnips, it seems like high time to revisit this post about the "video game" being replaced with the "living game world".

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2010, Congress was busy wrestling over exactly which digital technologies its members are allowed to use, we were questioning why warrantless wiretapping is even necessary when warrant requests never get rejected, and the latest already-ruined attempt at patent reform entering new territory, a Rupert Murdoch property was yet again caught hypocritically engaging in evil "aggregation", and a UK court ruled that sports schedules could somehow be covered by copyright. This was also the week the FCC finally gave the unfortunate go-ahead for selectable output control.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2005, a mystery patent buyer who prevented a bunch of patents from falling into the hands of Intellectual Ventures was revealed to be Novell making a defensive move. AOL flagged a bunch of official government emergency alerts as spam and tried to awkwardly stand by the error. Opponents of open source were latching onto the silly idea that it's somehow illegal, while fans of DRM were latching onto the equally silly idea that it could be made universal, interoperable, and effective. And the MPAA had somehow convinced the Boy Scouts in Hong Kong to start offering up a new intellectual property badge for scouts who sufficiently absorb Hollywood propaganda.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the those-were-the-days dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2015, Sony was once again warning the media not to report on leaked emails — and they even sent a letter to Techdirt, to which we publicly responded — while MPAA boss Chris Dodd was implying that the US should go after Wikileaks for publishing them. Perhaps because the emails revealed things like how the MPAA pirated clips from Google commercials to make its own propaganda videos, and strategized about how to "tell the positive side" of internet censorship. Meanwhile, major record labels were trying to get SOPA by the back door, via a lawsuit against MP3Skull, and the war on owning-what-you-buy was being waged on fronts from GM vehicles to DVDs.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2010, since everyone had already seen ACTA after the full text leaked, the USTR decided it was time to release it. The revised text was only slightly less awful than expected, and of course was missing one piece of information that would have been especially interesting: what each country was pushing for.

Also this week in 2010: Google began releasing stats on info and takedown requests from governments, a look at piracy stats showed the UK ones to be just as bogus as US ones and revealed that the MPAA unsurprisingly refused to share details on how it collected its numbers, and the Canadian entertainment industry was launching a new media campaign to push for draconian copyright laws.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2005, Verizon's CEO was deftly responding to consumer demands by complaining about the very fact that customers want any kind of service at all, while the ISP war on VoIP was bringing more companies in more countries into the fray, as was the recording industry's war on lyrics websites. We took a closer look at the entertainment industry's relationship with federal law enforcement, Microsoft's weak-sauce attempts to keep Encarta competitive with Wikipedia, and the latest impossible promise of perfect DRM (coming just as other providers of copy protection software got locked in a patent battle). This was also the week that Adobe bought Macromedia.

Filed Under: history, look back