This Week In Techdirt History: October 1st – 7th

Techdirt

Five Years Ago

This week in 2018, the DOJ filed a new net neutrality lawsuit against California that was a giant middle finger to consumers and competition, while the entire broadband soon followed suit with its own lawsuit. On another front, the DOJ failed at another attempt to obtain an encryption-breaking precedent in federal court. The Ninth Circuit continued its tradition of messing up copyright law by reopening the case over Stairway to Heaven, while a court in Texas shot down a record label’s attempt to expand the definition of vicarious infringement. We also took a look at how years of online copyright enforcement provided a clear demonstration of what aggressive content moderation looks like in practice.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2013, we were unsurprised to learn that the NSA stored its collected metadata for at least a year and collected mobile phone location data despite previous semi-denials, while a large coalition of tech companies and advocacy groups demanded more transparency about surveillance, and a former NSA director got rather sociopathic in his comments about the agency. We also got a look at how the NSA pulls man-in-the-middle attacks with help from telcos, and how it was trying hard to kill Tor (though James Clapper claimed they were just trying to “understand” it). This was also the week that the FBI arrested Silk Road owner Ross Ulbricht with a long and fascinating indictment in New York, soon followed up by a second indictment in Maryland.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2008, the world was still reeling from the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and we tried to dig into the global financial crisis and understand its potential impact on the tech industry as well as the wider economy. The House let orphan works legislation die and the Senate was talking about sending US copyright cops to foreign countries, while the Pirate Bay delivered a cheeky threat of a copyright lawsuit to demonstrate the absurdity of the law. EMI’s lawsuit against Michael Robertson was dismissed but its crusade againt MP3Tunes continued, while Hollywood and RealNetworks went to court over DVD ripping (and, in a bizarre move, the MPAA’s lawyers asked the press not to identify them). And some video game executives were speaking out about how DRM is not necessary for games, while others were busy freaking out about used game sales.

Filed Under: history, look back