This Week In Techdirt History: September 17th – 23rd
from the such-as-it-was dept
Five Years Ago
This week in 2018, Ajit Pai was whining about California’s net neutrality effort, while a court ordered the FCC to hand over data on bogus public comments about net neutrality, and Congress failed to invite a single consumer advocate to its upcoming hearings about broadband privacy rules. A Swedish ISP gave us a look at just how bad copyright trolling was getting in the country, and the Music Modernization Act in the US was getting ready to bring old sound recordings into the public domain. This was also the week that Elon Musk’s “pedo tweet” got him into a defamation lawsuit.
Ten Years Ago
This week in 2013, there were some criticisms over what the New York Times considered newsworthy in the NSA leaks, while the fallout continued with the Brazilian president snubbing Obama, and all the agency rank-and-file were still tossing out the same talking points. The FISA court revealed its “secret interpretation” of the Patriot Act, in which it pretended that every member of Congress had been given details about bulk surveillance, and we wondered why the interpretation was secret in the first place. Meanwhile, a judge decided the Prenda buck would stop with Steele and Hansmeier, and Charles Carreon finally gave up his ill-fated legal quest.
Fifteen Years Ago
This week in 2008, we wondered why the police sometimes call the RIAA to investigate crimes, and why NASA was auctioning off patents the public paid for. The RIAA, for its part, was going after one of its harshest critics and legal opponents, while Apple sparked controversy by banning a podcast app from the App Store for competing with iTunes, leading to mounting backlash. A big law firm was abusing trademark law to block the reporting of public info, NBC was bragging about how it made it harder for people to watch the Olympics, and in a convergence of IP nonsense, a company was trying to patent pre-settlement letters for copyright infringement. Also, this was the week that Bandcamp launched.
Comments on “This Week In Techdirt History: September 17th – 23rd”
Music Modernization Act
I’m grateful for the Music Modernization Act. Whenever I make a copyrighted cover of a song, a song using public domain samples (i.e. audio recordings whose © has expired), or receive songwriting royalties from my PRO BMI thanks to people listening to songs I wrote or had a hand in writing on streaming services, I have the MMA to thank for all three of those.
The Music Modernization Act was rarer than Koby directly answering a question: it was a good law passed by TFG. That being said, the credit for it being any good should have to go to Ron Wyden, who used his power to benefit the public, which these days is unfortunately more shocking out of an elected official in Washington than if Mike Masnick would advocate for permanent copyright. But Ron Wyden is definitely one of the good ones and on these types of issues, he’s the best.
The funniest shit about the net neutrality repeal (or… maybe funniest isn’t the best word, depending on who you ask) was the insistence, up and down the corporate ladders of ISPs their apologists, that fucking up Title II and net neutrality would absolutely be fantastic for consumers. Everyone from Ajit Pai to his under the desk gremlin Richard Bennett insisted that this would happen.
Fast forward to 2023, after a pandemic that sent every desk jockey scrambling home for a functioning Internet connection… and we’re no better off from when we started.
The one upside is that Richard Bennett hasn’t been seen since checks notes August 2021. Maybe he finally got the hint and got himself infected.