This Week In Techdirt History: February 5th – 11th
Five Years Ago
This week in 2018, the FCC was patting itself on the back for a historically stupid year, while it issued a report falsely claiming that killing net neutrality helped broadband competition, just as New Jersey became the latest state to protect net neutrality by executive order. Meanwhile, Hollywood was pushing some wild ideas for copyright in NAFTA negotiations, a new study suggested that shutting down file sharing sites would hurt the music industry and new artists, and on the Techdirt Podcast we featured an interview with Rep. Zoe Lofgren.
This was also the week in which we marked the death of the legendary John Perry Barlow, and featured a piece on his legacy from Mike Godwin.
Ten Years Ago
This week in 2013, we saw some copyright insanity in the form of a school policy that required students to hand over copyright on all work, leading to a campaign calling on the school to knock it off. We saw yet another example of someone abusing the DMCA for the purposes of censorship, and yet another example of DMCA idiocy as HBO’s anti-piracy contractor sent takedown notices over the official HBO website, just as an effort was kicking off to start cataloguing bogus takedowns. Meanwhile, the implosion of Prenda Law was continuing apace, though the spectacle had a bit of competition from the previous year’s legal punching bag, Righthaven.
Fifteen Years Ago
This week in 2008, the FBI was looking into building a huge biometric database, while the White House was trying to avoid scrutiny of its surveillance policy. Record labels were taking another shot at their crusade against Baidu, the House approved a stupid bill requiring universities to offer students music services, and the RIAA floated the terrifying and terrible idea of including copyright filters in antivirus software (while it was also facing more accusations of illegal investigative techniques). Meanwhile, a Danish court demanded that an ISP start blocking The Pirate Bay, though the ISP was considering fighting back since it couldn’t see why it should comply.