This Week In Techdirt History: December 15th - 21st

from the remember? dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, the world was reeling from a major hack of Sony and a trove of documents it exposed. While the company was trying to put the genie back in the bottle (even being accused of engaging in DDoS attacks), the documents were revealing the MPAA's relationwhip with Attorneys General, especially Mississippi's Jim Hood in his investigations Google — soon followed by more evidence, then even more, prompting Google to file a challenge against Hood's subpoenas. We also learned more about the MPAA's ongoing desire for SOPA-style site blocking and its secret plan to break the internet by reinterpreting the DMCA. By the end of the week, the FBI had formally accused North Korea of being responsible for the hack.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, Microsoft made one of the most infuriating DRM screw-ups when Office 2003 started locking people out of their own documents, Blu-Ray was trying to implement a silly managed copy DRM, and Apple and various other companies were making it almost impossible to publish an audiobook without DRM. A woman who was arrested for filming snippets of New Moon was considering suing the theater, ASCAP was demanding licenses from venues that let people play Guitar Hero, and the FBI did its duty as Hollywood's police force and arrested the person who leaked Wolverine online. Meanwhile, Joe Biden convened a "piracy summit" that was completely one-sided, full of copyright maximalists complaining about theft, where reporters were kicked out so everyone could schmooze in peace. Congress also earmarked another $30-million to fight piracy, but we were at least somewhat pleasantly surprised when the White House actually came out in favor of copyright exemptions for the visually impaired.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, TiVo was still king of the DVR world, and started lashing out to protect its trademark in some questionable ways, while Blockbuster was trying to forestall its death at the hands of Netflix by doing away with late fees. A lawsuit was filed with the argument that software should not be copyrightable, the MPAA decided to start going after BitTorrent trackers, and SonyBMG was once again celebrating new DRM for CDs. And in Canada, a court overturned the country's tax on MP3 players, though we suspected that would just set the stage for new and even worse legislative changes.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the thanks-for-the-memories dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, the war on encryption continued with the NSA Director fearmongering about a pending cyberattack, backed up by a misinformed WSJ op-ed, as we looked at how encryption back doors could harm intelligence gathering and military operations. The net neutrality attacks were also coming strong, with a misleading poll propping up the partisan divide, CenturyLink defending its lobbying for protectionist state laws, and Mark Cuban jumping on the bandwagon despite apparently not understanding what net neutrality is. Meanwhile, Nielsen finally caught up to reality and started trying to track streaming viewers after years of denying the existence of cord-cutting.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, while the heads of major movie studios were claiming that they just wanted to help indie filmmakers with their anti-piracy demands, others were seeing that movie piracy is largely the studios' fault (inasmuch as it's a problem at all) and new research was continuing to show how copying and imitation is good for society. Senators were beginning to question the secrecy of the ACTA negotiations, and we were noticing the inconsistency between companies' support for ACTA and support for a treaty providing more access to content for the visually impaired.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, we were wondering (with some perhaps-undue optimism...) whether the entertainment industry was losing its political power. BT was trying to get in on the extremely crowded music download store market, Radiohead was disappointingly charging fees for quoting its music even in clear cases of fair use, and one judge was thankfully telling the MPAA to slow down with the John Doe lawsuits. Meanwhile, UK drivers were ignoring driving-while-yakking laws just like everyone else, people were twisting the results of a study showing the educational benefits of computers to their phone ringing, and the problem of patent hoarding was getting enough attention to even show up in USA Today.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: November 17th - 23rd

from the so-it-went dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, the incoming head of the House Intelligence Committee was... Devin Nunes, talking about how surveillance reform is unnecessary — though former CIA/NSA Director Michael Hayden was saying that only ISIS would benefit from the proposed USA Freedom Act, and a defense official was telling the intelligence community to grow up and stop blaming Ed Snowden, and a former NSA executive was claiming he challenged bulk phone records collection but was rebuffed. The USA Freedom Act did fail to pass the Senate this week, but for stupid reasons.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, old-school journalists were busy getting mad about the internet, while clinging to things like optimistic studies where people say they'd pay for online news. The MPAA and Sony Pictures were backing down after shutting down a town's wifi over a single movie download the previous week, but the MPAA was still waging war on DVRs and being joined by the cable industry, while Sony Pictures announced its best box office year ever only a month after the CEO was moaning about piracy killing the movie business. Really, what holds back online entertainment business models was mainly legacy entertainment companies making it impossible for them to survive. But the copyright maximalists were pleased about how things were going in the UK, with Peter Mandelson proposing sweeping powers in the much-anticipated Digital Economy Bill aka copyright industry wish-list.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, Wilco's Jeff Tweedy emerged as an early example of a musician who understood the internet, and we took a bigger look at why user generated content should change how we view copyright. The MPAA officially moved ahead with its plan to follow in the RIAA's footsteps by suing a bunch of John Doe file-sharers, and Hollywood was just getting started on the anti-DVR war that would continue for years by trying to have commercial skipping deemed illegal (and of all people, it was John McCain who recognized just how ridiculous this was). Meanwhile, Steve Ballmer made some FUD waves with his claim that anyone who uses Linux will be sued for patent infringement — which was quickly rebuffed by the author of the study he said the idea was based on.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the do-you-recall dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, the amicus briefs were rolling in on Google's first attempt to get SCOTUS to hear the Oracle case. We were surprised when Obama called for real net neutrality, and not so surprised when the broadband industry and T-Mobile's CEO and the rest of the anti-net-neutrality brigade freaked out in response. Meanwhile, Techdirt got dragged into the Roca Labs affair when Roca bizarrely sued Marc Randazza largely over a post we wrote, just before it began issuing bogus DMCA notices to Google over PissedConsumer reviews. This was also the week we launched the Techdirt podcast.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, a Danish anti-piracy group was withdrawing all its lawsuits against individuals after it lost most of them, though this just spurred the IFPI to say it would start seizing computers to get more evidence. The UK was moving towards forcing ISPs to retain user data and kicking people off the internet, while Rupert Murdoch was audaciously claiming that fair use could be struck down entirely by the courts, and we took a look at how a lot of Murdoch's own websites contained aggregators just like the ones he was so angry about. Verizon started passing on RIAA letters to users, the MPAA got a town's public wi-fi shut down over one single unauthorized movie download, and we looked closer at Bluebeat's bizarre "psycho-acoustic simulation" copyright claim on Beatles songs.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, Monster Cable was establishing its reputation as a trademark monster, Blockbuster was making the questionable decision to buy more stores, and the entertainment industry just couldn't quite give up on self-destructing DVDs. The deluge of video ads on the web was just beginning, though it probably wasn't yet quite as annoying as AOL's very stupid TV commercials. The notion of selling instead of going public was becoming mainstream for tech startups, and Google's not-so-revolutionary IPO was not kickstarting the Dutch Auction trend many people expected. And lastly, this was the week Firefox officially hit version 1.0.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the looking-back dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, while congress was gearing up to push a dangerous cybersecurity bill and one court was telling the DOJ that "state secrets" isn't a magic wand, we were hoping an important lawsuit about NSA surveillance would go forward despite the nutty plaintiff. A former NSA lawyer was hilariously warning Google and Apple that Blackberry failed because of 'too much encryption', while James Comey was just angrily demanding backdoor keys, and in the UK the GCHQ was straight-up blaming the tech industry for facilitating murder.

Ten Years Ago

This very same week in 2009, the Obama administration was playing the "state secrets" card in a warrantless wiretapping case, not long after promising to change its state secret practices. Meanwhile, the MPAA was telling the FCC that file sharing would kill the internet, hot on the heels of getting 60 Minutes to air a full show of unalloyed MPAA propaganda about piracy — even as yet more studies were showing file sharers buy more media (just like how DVRs were helping, not hurting, TV) and attacks on file sharing just drive people further underground. But the latest leaks showed the copyright folks were planning on getting their way in one place: ACTA, which was looking like an entertainment industry wishlist.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, long before today's concerns about social media and politics, the big question was if political spam could influence elections. The MPAA was in the news too, foolishly following in the RIAA's footsteps and suing 200 file sharers — while DVRs were just starting to truly catch on. Phones were transforming tech with voicemail on the way out in favour of SMS and camera phone photos showing up on the front pages of newspapers. And the broadband providers were still fighting their vicious fight to ensure municipal broadband never happens.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: October 27th - November 2nd

from the once-upon-a-time dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, while the EU Court of Justice was ruling that embedding is not infringing in a decision sure to infuriate copyright maximalists, Europe's new Digital Commissioner was on the other side of the coin exploring the idea of an EU-wide Google tax, and Spain passed a new copyright law demanding payment for snippets and links. The MPAA was freaking out over the short-lived appearance of Google Glass by banning the technology outright with an announcement hilariously referencing their "long history of welcoming technological advances", and one pizzeria was pushing trademark insanity to the limits by trying to trademark the signature flavor of its pizza. Meanwhile, Verizon was continuing its fight against net neutrality by launching its own tech blog with an editorial policy banning any mention of the subject, as well as that of government surveillance.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, we were disappointed to see DMCA abuse by NPR and silly trademark bullying by SPARC, while not especially surprised to see Amazon fighting hard for its infamous one-click buying patent after it was rejected in Canada, or to see Warner Bros. shutting down a not-for-profit Harry Potter-themed dinner organized by a fan. The RIAA was on board with net neutrality as long as it exempted ISPs blocking file-sharers, an Italian politician was trying to file charges against nearly 5,000 YouTube commenters, Japanese prosecutors were still going after the developer of a file-sharing program, and an entertainment industry lawyer filed a criminal copyright complaint against Google in Germany. This was also the week that GeoCities officially went offline, and we had one headline that is especially amusing to see today: Netflix Claims Americans Don't Want Standalone Streaming Movie Service.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, more people were continuing to realize that DRM sucks, while DirecTV was realizing that satellite internet sucks, and a former RIAA boss was suddenly magically realizing that Creative Commons doesn't actually suck as much as she thought. The recording industry in Australia was going after the operator of a directory of MP3 download sites, a strange effort by a Spanish company to offer supposedly-legal MP3 downloads ended with a settlement with the RIAA, and one court got things right when it said Lexmark was abusing the DMCA with its circumvention lawsuit over competing ink cartridges. We also saw a couple companies get badly confused: Rolex (the up-and-coming favorite brand for spammers) managed to send a cease-and-desist to a mailing list archive because it received fake Rolex spam, and Nintendo had to apologize after it rushed to threaten the SuicideGirls website over a model's profile that listed some Nintendo titles among her favorite video games.

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the tis-written dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, scrutiny was ramping up on former NSA boss Keith Alexander from all directions, while evidence continued to emerge further linking the NSA's SIGINT director to private contractors. Rep. Mike Rogers was calling for Ed Snowden to be charged with murder, and a former agency official was saying anyone who "justified" Snowden's leaks shouldn't be allowed to work for the government. We learned more about the CIA's spying on the Senate, while Congress was not so easily giving in to the FBI's demands about ending encryption, and amidst all this... more research showed mass surveillance doesn't work.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, the copyright lobby was bumping up against proposed anti-spam laws because they might interfere with their DRM and spyware practices, copyright holders were going to war with univeristy photocopy shops, and the US Chamber of Commerce began its DMCA-fight with prank group The Yes Men. We learned that Shepard Fairey made some bad decisions in his copyright fight with the AP over his famous Obama poster, but also wondered whether anyone could trust the AP's own reporting on the subject. And we saw trademark shenanigans from both the usual suspects (Monster Energy) and some more surprising ones (The Sex Pistols).

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, people were looking to the future of mobile devices — especially with cheap wifi on the rise — and examining everything from what makes mobile bullying unique to the coming consequences of device convergence and the possibility of peer-to-peer bartering becoming a dominant form of commerce. One prediction certainly didn't come true: a Finnish researcher extrapolated some trends and decided that the internet would collapse in 2006. Meanwhile, the RIAA's own figures were painting a different picture about file sharing from the one the agency liked to tout, web publishers were maybe-kinda-sorta coming to terms with BugMeNot, and some news websites were getting over their silly aversion to linking to other news outlets in their own coverage.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: October 13th - 19th

from the still-not-in-space dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, while Edward Snowden was telling a reporter that he probably wouldn't have revealed as much as reporters did from his documents (which was part of the point of passing the decision on people not immersed in the NSA), new releases from said documents gave us a look at the NSA's infiltration of foreign tech companies with undercover agents. The agency also finally released Keith Alexander's financial disclosure documents (with none of the ensuing security breaches they were so insistent this would cause). And we looked at some numbers painting a picture of just how aggressive the Obama administration was with leakers.

Meanwhile, we also got a look at a big leaked chunk of the in-progress TPP agreement. Most of it was the IP chapter that read like a pharma company wish list that would be a disaster for public health, and included plenty of surveillance gifts for Hollywood, plus a tidy little measure allowing the criminilization of corporate whistleblowers.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, while the IOC was complaining about Flickr photos because a photographer used a CC license, a Dutch collection society was backing down slightly on its attacks on video embeds — but highlighting the difficult question of when a small blog becomes "commercial". This question came up in an entirely different context in New York this week as well, when someone lost their unemployment benefits because their blog ads paid around a dollar a day.

Also this week in 2009: the AP and News Corp were demanding to be paid for content (and the latter was launching a news aggregator while complaining about news aggregators), ASCAP and BMI were looking for even more onerous royalties, DRM was contributing to a disastrous launch for the PSO Go, EMI signed a deal with Grooveshark thanks to negotiation through lawsuit, and yet amidst all this... the Nobel Prize in economics went for a second time to work that highlights the power of infinite goods.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, people were starting to realize (and argue about) how mobile phones extend people's capabilities while changing their skillsets. Amidst the hype about mobile TV, few companies seemed to realize that the real future of mobile video was communication and user-created content, much like how the real challenge and opportunity for news online was how much people want to share it. Interest in downloadable music stores was fading as the launch promotions dried up, the DOJ was practically begging to become Hollywood's private police force, and the Supreme Court passed on considering the RIAA's attempts to get the names of file sharers from ISPs at the same time as a UK court was ordering ISPs to hand them over. Meanwhile, hot on the heels of the Virgin Galactic announcement the previous week, potential amateur astronauts were showing up with the ticket price in hand and, at the time, it looked like private space tourism might only be a few years away.

Filed Under: history, look back

This Week In Techdirt History: September 29th - October 5th

from the not-so-distant-past dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, while Roca Labs was going off the rails in a case that kept getting more and more bizarre, we saw a mixed bag of court decisions: Warner Bros. was ordered to reveal its automated DMCA takedown notice process, a judge adjusted the MP3Tunes ruling while blasting both sides for their approach, and the music labels unsurprisingly won their suit against Grooveshark — with the silver lining that the ruling didn't screw up DMCA safe harbors like it could have.

Meanwhile, Eric Holder was employing some disgusting FUD in his fight against phone encryption (and wasn't alone), as it became clear just how little he cared about digital rights.

Ten Years Ago

Last week, the Lily Allen saga flared up, got weird, then mostly concluded. But there was still one development remaining, and the only truly positive thing to come out of the whole affair — this week in 2009, Dan Bull namedropped Mike in his excellent song Dear Lily in what would become a brief trend of such "open letters" from the UK musician and spark an ongoing friendship with Techdirt:

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, because nothing in this realm ever changes but the digit, folks were talking about the need to chill out on the 5G 4G 3G hype, and quite possibly the mobile TV hype too. A growing number of doctors were calling for an end to mobile phone bans in hospitals, while the New York Times, in typical fashion, was finally realizing that schools had gotten rid of such bans and dutifully bringing us this amazing breaking news. And a lot of newspapers were starting to get nervous about Google News, leading some to rightly suspect that they'd sue if Google monetized it. Meanwhile, we saw a surprisingly good call from the Patent Office when it rejected Microsoft's patent on the FAT file system (though unsurprisingly they would manage to get it approved two years later, eventually enabling their infamous lawsuit against TomTom).

Filed Under: history, look back

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

from the how-it-went dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2014, Benjamin Wittes was attacking NSA critics with a big swing-and-a-miss, while Senator Saxby Chambliss was nonsensically invoking ISIS to defend the agency, and John Brennan was getting caught in a tangled web over the CIA spying on Senate staffers. Meanwhile, Apple and Google were moving to encrypt phones by default, leading to a law enforcement freakout with plenty of FUD from the feds, all the way up to James Comey slamming the companies for enacting basic security.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2009, the Techdirt/Lily Allen drama unfolded as the debate around Peter Mandelson's plan to kick UK file-sharers off the internet heated up. First, TorrentFreak discovered that Allen had reposted an entire Techdirt post on her blog without any link or credit, which we noted doesn't bother us but should make her rethink her views on piracy. As other artists like James Blunt and Elton John (in a massive flip-flop) joined Allen in supporting internet disconnection, she apologized for copying the post while entirely missing the point about the ease and innocence of casual copying. She attempted to answer some questions but didn't seem to address any of the really important ones being raised in her blog comments, and then things got sillier: it turned out her own official website was still distributing an early mixtape she made that was full of "pirated" songs. It was our honest hope that this would be a genuine teaching moment, but while Allen did appear to decide that kicking people offline might be too draconian, she mostly just seemed to miss the point some more, and delete her blog.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2004, textbook publishers were the ones becoming loud members of the crowd complaining about filesharing, while Wired Magazine was convincing some musicians to experiment with Creative Commons, and for a brief moment it looked like the MPAA might actually face some consequences for bogus DMCA takedowns. WiFi was being plagued with silly patent fights over the technology itself and amazingly even the very idea of offering public internet access, while MusicMatch successfully fended of a patent attack by Gracenote. And AOL became an early adopter of two-factor authentication but with a not-so-great twist: you had to pay a $10 setup fee and $2 per month to make use of it.

Filed Under: history, look back