This Week In Techdirt History: May 12th – 18th
from the that-was-that dept
Five Years Ago
This week in 2019, the government hit whistleblower David Hale with espionage charges. All four major wireless carriers were hit with lawsuits over sharing location data, while employees of AT&T and Verizon were caught up in a DOJ bust over SIM hijacking. Canada’s Prime Minister was threatening to fine social media companies over fake news, while a Canadian committee published a ludicrous fantasy pretending to be a copyright reform analysis. And, in perhaps the most notable news for us this week, we announced the conclusion of our legal dispute with Shiva Ayyadurai.
Ten Years Ago
This week in 2014, AT&T was warning of a parade of horribles that would supposedly happen if the FCC reclassified broadband, the cable industry was lying about having invested in broadband and supported net neutrality (since the industry’s own numbers showed a general decline in investment over the years), and Tom Wheeler was revising his net neutrality plans before opening the floor to comments. Then, an initial vote on new open internet rules was reported in drastically different ways in different publications. We also wrote about why making APIs copyrightable is bad news for innovation, while Automattic announced that it wouldn’t claim copyright over its APIs.
Fifteen Years Ago
This week in 2009, there was a tidal wave of lawsuits over pirated clip-art, while we continued writing about how people make a lot of bad assumptions about copyright and it’s almost impossible to live your life without infringing. The BSA released more bogus piracy numbers, the CEO of Sony Pictures was complaining about the internet, and Francea approved a three-strikes law. Meanwhile, Craigslist gave in to constant attacks by Attorneys General and started locking down its “erotic services” category, which (amusingly) actually annoyed some AGs like Andrew Cuomo and Henry McMaster, because Craigslist just did it without giving them the photo op and fawning press coverage they hoped for.
Comments on “This Week In Techdirt History: May 12th – 18th”
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Can’t believe it’s been five years since traitor Hale was charged. Time flies!
Also, what a fall for Scahill–from effective (if clearly mentally unstable) investigative journalist to Hamas cheerleader. Wonder if he was always so anti-Semitic.
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I met Jeremy Scahill on more than one occasion. He’s not anti-Semitic. Source: I am Jewish.
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Probably a self-loathing Jew like Greenwald.
How frequently have you condemned Israeli statecraft and excused Hamas terrorism?
Re: Re: Re: You first bro
How frequently have you condemned USA statecraft and excused MAGA terrorism?
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So you’re gauging my Jewishness by loyalty to Israel? You know that makes you the anti-Semite, right?
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🥱
Huh. It really has been five years since Shiva Ayyadurai’s attempt to nuke the site was finally ended, hasn’t it.
antidirt and out_of_the_blue never really recovered from that crushing blow. Neither did Hamilton. John Smith tries, but he’s still incredibly easy to pick out. The replacements in davec, Matthew Bennett, Hyman Rosen and Arianity have not been much of an improvement.
Wow, five years have already passed since the end of the Shiva didn’t invent email saga. Shout out to Ray Tomlinson for inventing email.
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Yuri Borisovich Milner was the actual inventor of email.
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Actually, I invented email. I have a shirt to prove it.
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I heard it was that Spartacus guy. He’s everywhere these days.
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You’re right.
Source: I am Spartacus and so’s my wife!