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

Techdirt

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.

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