This Week In Techdirt History: April 12th - 18th

from the let's-reminisce dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2015, the White House was floating the idea of crypto backdoors while the Senate Intelligence Committee was finally deciding it should maybe keep a real eye on the Intelligence Community, and we learned that the Baltimore Police Department had asked the creators of The Wire to not include details about their cellphone surveillance tools. The lawsuits against the FCC's net neutrality rules were pouring in from the usual suspects while Republicans were rushing to kill the rules and Verizon was claiming that nobody really wants unlimited data. We also got a look at some emails from MPAA boss Chris Dodd, revealing the organization's real feelings about fair use (it's bad!) as well as its feelings about giving money to politicians involved in writing copyright law (it's good!)

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2010, Apple was exercising its control over the iPhone ecosystem, a book publisher was trying vainly to exercise control over people ordering books from abroad, and a Japanese newspaper was hoping to exercising control over whether people can link to its website. The TSA admitted that body scanners could save images, the RIAA insisted that musicians can't make money without them, and telcos still maintained that Google was getting a "free ride". This was also the week that an online publication won a Pulitzer for the first time, and the week that the Library of Congress announced it would begin storing tweets.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2005, we took a look at how tricky things were getting in the VoIP space because people were forgetting or ignoring the fact that voice is data. We were pleased to see IBM free up a bunch of patents, but wondered why the New York Times felt that this was so baffling it needed exhaustive explanation. A customer sued Comcast for handing their info over to the RIAA, muni broadband was doing better in some places than people thought, and Google quietly launched its pre-YouTube video offering. Meanwhile, we were shocked-not-shocked to learn things like that people prefer buying cars online and mobile carriers won't make money selling music.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: March 29th - April 4th

from the that-rings-a-bell dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2015, in what was not an April Fool's joke, President Obama signed a silly cybersecurity executive order that amounted to little more than an empty threat, while raising some concerning questions. Meanwhile, in the TV world, analysts were still happily pretending cord-cutting doesn't exist and doing their part for an entire industry in denial (to the point cable companies would throw tantrums when forced to offer a la carte channels). We also took a look at how the TPP could be used to undermine free speech, and a ridiculous ruling in Ireland that required ISPs to kick accused filesharers off the internet.

Ten Years Ago

There were a couple of huge rulings this week in 2010. In one, the district court in the Myriad Genetics case ruled that patents on isolated genes are invalid, in a decision that would have a widespread impact. In another unrelated but equally monumental ruling, a court said the Bush administration broke the law with warrantless wiretaps.

Meanwhile, a huge wave of automated copyright shakedown lawsuits hit the US, the EU was putting the pressure on Canada to change its IP laws, the Olympic Committee was already hard at work securing its sweeping powers in Vancouver for 2012, and Sony made a lot of people very angry and ruined a lot of cool projects by removing the ability to install other operating systems on the PS3.

Fifteen Years Ago

Five years earlier in 2005, Sony was on the receiving end of a sudden disruption when a judge ruled that the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 infringed on patents and could not be sold in the US, while over on the Sony Music side, the boss was asking the Supreme Court to step in and stop piracy (the very real chilling effects of the entertainment industry's stance on Grokster weren't getting it done). Librarians and hobbyists were stepping up to oppose the broadcast flag, ISPs were practically begging to be regulated by blocking VoIP usage, and Verizon was blaming the entertainment industry for its decision to cripple Bluetooth on phones.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the back-to-the-past dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2015, while AT&T was changing its story on Title II classification when it protected AT&T, the first legal challenges to net neutrality rules were filed, and the State of Tennessee was fighting the FCC to be able to block muni-broadband. We got a look at the extremely concerning rules in the leaked corporate sovereignty portion of the TPP agreement, and learned more about how the USTR bullied other countries into extending copyright, while the copyright industry was still pushing for stricter rules in Australia. On the brighter side, copyright troll Perfect 10 was ordered to pay $5.6 million over a bogus lawsuit.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2010, Viacom was using its legal battle with YouTube to brazenly pretend the DMCA requires proactive filtering, while Hollywood was still parroting made up facts about piracy that the AP happily parroted, and one lawyer in a criminal copyright trial was pushing back on casual use of the term "piracy", on the basis that it's prejudicial. We learned that the ACTA agreement was set to cover not just copyright and trademarks, but seven areas of intellectual property, while EU negotiators continued to insist it would move forward and there was nothing to worry about — though reports from the field suggested that negotiations weren't going so well. The full ACTA draft was leaked midway through the week, and it was full of all the troubling stuff we expected and more, raising serious constitutional questions.

Fifteen Years Ago

In 2005, there was still an idea floating around that you could cause an explosion by using a mobile phone at the gas pump, which Mythbusters dispelled this week. List spam was on the rise while classic spam was apparently still working, and phishing was looking unnecessary given how easily people would give up personal info. And screensavers were still a thing — and a vector for malware.

We were watching the actions of newly-minted MPAA boss Dan Glickman, and his big idea seemed to be just telling people not to tape movies and, bafflingly, to make the movie industry more like the IRS. But at least he had the help of the FBI, which was ramping up its role as Hollywood's private enforcer.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: February 2nd - 8th

from the past-present-future dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2015, Michael Hayden was saying some worrying things about the 4th Amendment, while we learned about the FISA court's rubberstamping of questionable NSA legal theories and the DOJ was staying quiet about whether it took any action against NSA analysts who spied on "love interests". None of this seemed to be scaring Canada away from pushing for its own PATRIOT-like anti-terrorism legislation. We also learned about Germany's spies sucking up phone metadata and sharing it with the NSA, while a court in the UK was saying the GCHQ's similar behavior was illegal in the past but not anymore, and UK Lords were trying yet again to sneak through their Snooper's Charter less than a week after failing to do so.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2010, copyright settlement shakedowns were getting so bad that even the recording industry was criticizing them, while News.com had to help prevent a falsely-accused grandmother from being kicked off the internet by the MPAA. We wondered if the recording industry in the UK would be willing to pay for the cost of the the ISP monitoring they were demanding, while an Australian court thankfully ruled that ISPs are not liable for infringing users — leading the copyright industry to seek a government bailout. Of course, we also saw a very bad ruling in Australia, with the court agreeing that Men At Work's Down Under infringed on the folk song Kookaburra.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2005, the RIAA was really exposing its sloppy shakedown tactics by suing a non-computer-owner who also happened to be dead. French musicians were asking the industry to stop suing fans, while rumors that online music sales were oustripping CDs were greatly exaggerated. A scandal over supposedly missing disks of classified information from Los Alamos was dissipated when it became clear that the disks never existed in the first place, a text messaging scandal was continuing to cause massive overreaction in India, and one wrong button push almost caused the complete evacuation of the state of Connecticut. We also had a post this week about the birth of Amazon Prime which, interestingly, has amassed nearly 600 comments (trickling in all the way up to 2018) from people who were confused and angry about being automatically billed for the service.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: January 26th - February 1st

from the prior-events dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2015, the Charlie Hebdo attack had the UK reviving interest in its "Snooper's Charter", while we learned about how the feds went to Google to snoop on the emails of Wikileaks journalists — and gagged Google after the backlash to their similar warrants against Twitter. Justice Sotomayor was calling out the DOJ for devaluing the 4th Amendment, the EU's counterterrorism coordinator finally openly said they want to force internet companies to hand over crypto keys, and China's government was getting in on the crypto-wars too — all while a privacy board review of the NSA noted that the agency doesn't know or care how effective its surveillance programs are.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2010, there were still those in the music business who believed the impossible was possible, and wanted all piracy stopped, while we noted the irony of ACTA supporters speaking out against internet-oppressive regimes, the unintended consequences of three strikes programs were cropping up more and more (as we pointed out that three strikes won't save thee recording industry), and Jammie Thomas was rejecting a settlement offer from the RIAA. And another copyright case joined the insane-damages-parade when the plaintiff was awarded $51-million over a satellite cracking app. Lord Mandelson was trying to make the UK's kick-folks-off-the-net plan even worse by making them pay to appeal decisions. But at least some folks, like Brian Eno, could see where things were going in the music industry — though others were getting a little over-optimistic about how Apple's upcoming tablet would save publishing.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2005, the government was getting involved in IBM's sale of its PC division over fears of Chinese industrial espionage. The EU was grappling over software patents while RIM was dealing with a patent lawsuit by being Canadian. There were more questions of liability regarding online posts, Microsoft decided to withhold Windows security updates from those with unauthorized copies, and the MPAA was being extremely magnanimous and doing everyone a gigantic favor by offering to give them software that would scan their machines for infringing files.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the as-it-happened dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2015, newly released documents from the Snowden leak revealed how the UK's GCHG collected emails from journalists and used compromised hardware to get data from iPhones, and how the NSA harvested data from other surveillance agencies. We also learned more about the DEA's role in the surveillance world, while the FBI was touting another of its own manufactured-then-foiled terror plots as evidence that the PATRIOT Act should be renewed.

Meanwhile, a European Parliament report called for wide-ranging copyright reform that was actually good, a court soundly rejected the attempt by Omega to abuse copyright to stop Costco selling its watches, and Cory Doctorow rejoined the EFF to lead a project to eradicate DRM. Also, James Bond entered the public domain in Canada, which is worth highlighting because we came up with a darn good headline if I do say so myself.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2010, the US was trying to strongarm Costa Rica into adopting draconian IP laws by blocking sugar from the US market, Italian lawmakers were pushing their own draconian provision to require government authorization for all video uploads, Oxford University made the bizarre decision to ban students from using Spotify, and EU trade negotiators were calling Canada's public comment period on copyright law "a tactic to confuse". BPI was insisting that UK ISPs were overstating the cost of a three strikes program, and the IFPI was loudly complaining about piracy in its annual report that conveniently omitted its own study showing file sharers also buy lots. ACTA secrecy was in full swing, with bloggers getting kicked out of consultations in Mexico and the UK government telling MPs they couldn't see the details. And in one better-than-nothing-I-guess development, the judge who oversaw the Jammie Thomas-Rasset case reduced the completely insane damages of $80,000 per song to the less astonishing (but still arbitrary) figure of $2,250 per song.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2005, radio broadcasters were gearing up to be the newest entrants in the already overcrowded world of music download stores, TV broadcasters were trying to come up with ways to compete with DVRs, and Sony's Ken Kutaragi surprisingly admitted that DRM held up the company's innovation. The "war on file sharing" nabbed its first prisoners in the form of two men who plead guilty to "conspiracy to commit felony copyright infringement", while one state senator in California was promoting the idea that developers of file-sharing programs should be jailed.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: January 12th - 18th

from the what-'twas dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2015, New York's top prosecutor was jumping into the war on smartphone encryption alongside UK Prime Minister David Cameron who appeared to express a desire to undermine all encryption, while President Obama announced a broad plan for "securing cyberpsace" that looked an awful lot like a law enforcement wish-list — all despite the fact that a leaked internal intelligence community document revealed recommendations for stronger and more encryption. And the NSA was apologizing for backdooring encryption, but in a "sorry we got caught" kind of way.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2010, we highlighted an excellent open letter to rock stars telling them to stop pretending they are fighting for up-and-coming artists with their copyright demands and anti-internet rhetoric. Marvel was trying to downplay Josh Kirby's work as part of the copyright termination fight, one school was trying to claim copyright over lesson plans while another was considering an anti-piracy campaign inspired by anti-drug campaigns, Grooveshark was sued yet again so negotiation-by-lawsuit could continue, and France's three strikes agency was caught pirating a font. But one big surprise was that the administrator of the OiNK torrent tracker, after explaining why he believed his system was legal, was found not guilty by the jury in a rare win sensible copyright.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2005, in a similar nice surprise, a file sharing network in South Korea was left alone by the courts. And who would think it was the head of Blockbuster Video in the UK who would be getting the right idea about how Hollywood needs to innovate if it wants to fight piracy. A new spam tactic was causing problems for the DNS system, company IT departments were struggling with what to do about personal devices, and paid search keywords were becoming a major public relations battleground. This was also the week that Apple released the first Mac Mini and the iPod Shuffle.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: January 5th - 11th

from the timeline-time dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2015, the administration made the meaningless gesture of sanctioning North Korea over the Sony hack, while James Clapper was calling it the most serious cyberattack on the US to date, implying there have been no serious ones, and Neil deGrasse Tyson was offering up the incredibly helpful and realistic suggestion that the solution is to simply create unhackable systems. The MPAA was trying to get regulators to force ISPs to block sites "at the border", while still pursuing their campaign to get links to pirated content out of Google — a strategy that is both ineffective and self-defeating. And we saw more bogus DMCA takedowns, of course, both mundane and personal.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2010, there was plenty more copyright panic from companies: Ninentdo shut down a fan-made Zelda movie, Sony was not supporting its own movies for the Oscars out of piracy fears over sending out DVD screeners, music publishers forced another lyrics site offline, and the UFC announced plans to start suing individuals for piracy. And even as many indie filmmakers were realizing that releasing movies for free online has many benefits, one indie record label in Finland was insisting it wouldn't sign any new bands until the government stops piracy. Meanwhile, Bono came out in favor of using China-style internet censorship to fight piracy (even as China's efforts were failing in many ways), garnering confused support from Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic even as he admitted he didn't really know much about the subject. And we looked at one attempt by an ISP to actually fight back against bogus DMCA notices, which only highlighted how this is almost impossible.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2005, there was some debate about the nature of apparent security loopholes in Microsoft's DRM, while Bill Gates was deploying the ol' accusations of "communism" against those who call for copyright reform. Another court told the MPAA it has to actually file lawsuits to get customer information from ISPs, while the BSA was seeking to codify the just-send-a-subpoena option right into the DMCA. After an initial loss, Geico was continuing its trademark crusade against Google, while Toronto's airport was getting into the trademark threat game to stop a silly blog that posts photos of urinals. And we were completely flabbergasted by the shocking results of a critical study, which revealed the oh-so-secret fact that... entertainment industry executives were scared of file sharing.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the the-year-ticks-over dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014/15, we reveled in the tradition of governments dropping news on Christmas Eve in the hopes that nobody will pay attention to it — employed by the NSA in releasing details on its illegal surveillance of Americans and by the French government to enact a controversial surveillance law of its own. Sony was caught infringing in copyright in a stark example of how broken the system is, while we used the notion of a movie about the big Sony hack to explore the unnecessary licensing of news stories. Comcast and Time Warner Cable were doing their darnedest to convince people their merger would be just fine, even though they were in fact the least-liked companies in any industry. And we took another look at how copyright makes culture disappear.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009/10, Amazon announced that Kindle ebooks outsold physical books for Christmas, but we noted that "sold" isn't exactly the right word for DRM-laden licensed rentals, which change the equation on the value of a Kindle and were already forcing customers to stick with bad products — and the distinction was also becoming important in the music world with questions about licenses stopping at the border. We also looked at how automakers were abusing anti-circumvention laws to force people to pay more for car repairs, and how the UK's Digital Economy Bill was projected to cost more than the highest estimates on the cost of piracy. Zynga was making copyright threats over a script for auto-playing Mafia Wars, and the Viacom/YouTube fight was hit with the embarrassing revelation that Viacom uploaded many of the videos it was suing over.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004/05, the popular technopanic was blaming wireless technology for everything under the sun — though at least one study was putting to bed the idea that it would interfere with pacemakers. Among the biggest sources of tech excitement was "nanotechnology", which we were beginning to realize was often just a rebranding of existing fields. Meanwhile, Wired took a detailed look at just how big and organized the file-sharing community was, while one anti-piracy group was caught hiding spyware and adware in Windows Media files.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the then-and-now dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, NSA mega-defender Mike Rigers took a moment on his way out of congress to attack Obama for not launching a pre-emptive cyberwar with North Korea, while a retired official launched a bizarre lawsuit against Edward Snowden and Laura Poitras "on behalf of the American people". We were also unsurprised to learn that a CIA-appointed panel determined there was nothing wrong with the CIA spying on the Senate.

Meanwhile, Sony was still lashing out against people sharing the documents leaked in the big hack, first demanding a Twitter user remove posts then stepping it up and threatening to sue Twitter itself. While this was going on, more digging through the documents confirmed that the MPAA's $80-million settlement with Hotfile was about appearances, not money.

Ten Years Ago

A brief world tour of this week in 2009: China was raising the Great Firewall even higher with claims about fighting piracy, the Australian Domain authority was shutting down sites critical of internet filters, Argentina was extending its copyright terms, a Hungarian copyright maximalist called those who oppose anti-circumvention laws "hate-driven" and "Maoist", Italian courts were continuing to attack YouTube at every opportunity, the Vancouver Olympics in Canada was making even-more-insane-than-usual intellectual property demands, and the Vatican created a special new copyright-like right on everything related to the Pope. On the more positive side, Chile rejected an attempt to force ISPs to filter and block copyrighted works, and at least one Lord in the UK was fighting to include something good in the Digital Economy Bill.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, the recording industry was getting creatively evil in attempting to freeze money donated to the Red Cross because it came from the company that operated Kazaa. The CEO of India's eBay affiliate was arrested because people sold pornographic material on the site, ComScore was trying to invent a new category of "researchware" to avoid its tools being called spyware, the Washington Post bought Slate, and some courts that installed WiFi networks were suddenly shocked by the fact that people were using them. Blockbuster was continuing to try to prop itself up, following its recent elimination of late fees with a big price drop for its subscription service. And at a time when it was popular to panic about kids using "text speak" and forgetting how to write properly, one study showed that they are perfectly capable of doing both.

Filed Under: history, look back