This Week In Techdirt History: November 8th – 14th

Techdirt

from the hindsight dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2015, we looked at early warnings of the EU’s all-out attack on hyperlinks, while the silly Monkey Selfie lawsuit was winding forward, and a new surprise player entered the copyright fight over Happy Birthday. The MPAA’s attempt to sneak SOPA in the back door was rejected, but the agency was getting cozy with the House Judiciary Committee. And we looked at the unsurprising trio of industries that most loved the TPP agreement.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2010, the USPTO was going in the wrong direction when it came to standards for patents, while we were sad to see the MIT Tech Review come out in favor of patent trolls. We saw some examples of overly draconian punishment with a sentence of 30 months in prison and over $50,000 in fines for a DDoS attack, an arrest in Japan for a leak of a new Pokemon character, and a university promising to report file sharing to police and warning students about five-year prison terms — so it was a good week to also take a look at just how insane statutory damages for file sharing are.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2005, Sony was not-really-dealing with the fallout from the previous week’s rootkit fiasco. As a class-action lawsuit was being prepared, the company was flubbing its media response and claiming rootkits aren’t a problem because most people don’t know what they are — never mind the fact that virus writers were already taking advantage of Sony’s technology to hide their tracks. This prompted some to take a deeper dive into Sony’s EULA, and find some ridiculous provisions like requiring you to delete all your music if you go bankrupt. Finally, at the end of the week, the company was browbeaten into “temporarily” stopping production of the rootkits, though apologies or admissions of wrongdoing were not forthcoming.

Filed Under: history, look back