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.
Comments on “This Week In Techdirt History: January 19th – 25th”
This week in "The Shit that People with Power Do".
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Looking back, we see one thing consistently.
The Media doesn’t have a mirror they hold up. They don’t look at themselves, or perceive their own actions. They just change the subject for their corporate masters, right on schedule.
Re: Looking back, we see one thing consistently.
A lot of subject-changing also has to do with the average (or less than average) USAnian attention span.
There is a merit in making sure that most people can understand a thing, but that went too far in appealing almost solely to the near-lowest-common-denominator. This, of course, is hardly limited to the media.
Corporate overlords do have power in burying stories or changing the subject or promoting a certain viewpoint, but they probably don’t need to exercise that power as much as some imagine, particularly when they were allowed to acquire all of the local outlets and only hire staff aligned with their viewpoint in the first place.
Re: Looking back, we see one thing consistently.
“They just change the subject for their corporate masters, right on schedule.”
Who are you working for then bro? Since about 90% of your bullshit is off topic and the other 10% is talking points from right wing nut jobs. Never mind I just answered my own question.