This Week In Techdirt History: January 7th – 13th
Five Years Ago
This week in 2019, we looked at how Ajit Pai's FCC often battled FOIA requests for no reason, while the Department of the Interior was trying to rewrite FOIA law to make it easier to reject requests. We saw fresh examples of copyright abuse as a means of silencing criticism of a movie, and a means of protecting hardware from modification. The state of Georgia, despite losing its copyright case, was still trying to prevent Carl Malamud from posting its laws, while the New York Times was seeking dismissal of a defamation lawsuit from Joe Arpaio. Also, the Appeals Court confirmed the ruling that government officials can't ban members of the public from their Facebook pages.
Ten Years Ago
This week in 2014, the NSA more or less admitted to spying on Congress, which Rep. Peter King defended by saying members might be talking to Al Qaeda, and then ironically went on to call Senator Rand Paul a fearmonger. Obama was planning cosmetic changes and a pretend fight over surveillance, while Dianne Feinstein admitted that her reform" bill was really about protecting existing NSA programs. Meanwhile, we looked at the detailed story of the RIAA and FBI prosecuting the leaker of a Guns N Roses album, and Insane Clown Posse sued the FBI for calling the Juggalos a gang. Also, Congress introduced a bi-partisan bill to fast track trade agreements without oversight, and we looked at the lies the USTR was spreading to get that authority in place and push through the TPP.
Fifteen Years Ago
This week in 2009, we looked more examples of copyright being used to hinder culture, not enable it, including how the Copyright Royalty Board was making life difficult for webcasting and how Fox News as using the DMCA to take down videos used in commentary, while Veoh scored a DMCA win against Universal Music and MP3Tunes was defending itself against EMI. We also took a look at how the aggression from Hasbro and Mattel had killed interest in online Scrabble, and got confirmation that Apple was coaxing record labels away from DRM in iTunes by offering up variable pricing. And, in the continuing fallout of the global financial crisis, we asked why we ever put ratings agencies into the law.