This Week In Techdirt History: October 15th – 21st

Five Years Ago

This week in 2018, we featured a pair of posts examining the recent court ruling in the copyright lawsuit over Stairway to Heaven. A new study on the FCC public comment fiasco showed that 99.7% of the real, original comments opposed the net neutrality repeal, while the New York AG was trying to tie major ISPs to the bogus comments. We predicted that streaming exclusivity would drive users back to piracy, Wall Street was quietly warning about 5G overhype, and an in a victory for Carl Malamud, the appeals court ruled that of course Georgia’s laws and annotations are free to share.

Ten Years Ago

This same week in 2013, there was also news about the fight to free laws from copyright, when Carl Malamud faced a similar challenge in Mississippi. We learned more about the mountains of data the NSA collects and how it makes the agency’s job harder, and we also learned about the agency’s involvement in the drone strike program, while the agency itself was denying that it engages in online attacks. Also: IsoHunt agreed to shut down and “pay” an inflated settlement, Prenda made a big mistake, and we were surprised and very disappointed to see Tim Berners-Lee support adding DRM to the HTML5 standard.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2008, we looked at how the MPAA’s lawsuit against Real was really about control and innovation, XKCD called out the problems with DRM, and EA tried to pretend most people didn’t hate DRM. The ProIP bill was signed into law, giving the White House its copyright czar, and some investors began to realize that it was bad for the entertainment industry. There was also lots of news out of the UK, where the government took one more step towards software patents, and told ISPs they must retain user data, and released details on (but delayed implementation of) a surveillance plan, while a court ruled that the authorities can force people to hand over encryption keys.