This Week In Techdirt History: June 5th - 11th

Five Years Ago

This week in 2011, we were still looking at the previous week's hearings on pre-1972 sound recordings, where the RIAA was staunchly supporting the past extensions of copyright law while insisting that reducing copyright law would be unconstitutional, and leading us to ask would it really be so bad if The Beatles were public domain? This was all happening at the same time as the Golan case, which led us to underline how damaging it is to take works out of the public domain as well. Sadly, we also saw yet another loss for appropriation art in the courts, this time focused on a Run DMC painting.

Apple was launching its new Music Match service, with all the copyright questions it implied, but rightsholders couldn't seem to agree on how they felt about it - and alongside its competitors, it also highlighted the point that fragmenting the cloud is missing the point.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2006, the US government was pressuring other countries over foreign music sites for no obvious reason other than direct marching orders from the entertainment industry. This pressure, and the exportation of policy, was poised to stymie innovation globally just like the DMCA did at home. At least there were rumblings of more reasonable views on copyright coming from politicians in the UK and a former RIAA boss who came to her senses a little too late. Meanwhile, the copyright industries were lobbying for a pernicious legal change that would require licenses even for incidental copies such as cached files. But what the industry excelled at most was invoking the Streisand Effect on sites like AllOfMp3.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2001, we noted a trend towards centralization on the web, with fifty percent of online time being spent on four websites (AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Napster). The dot-com bubble blame game was still going on and occasionally getting ugly, with violence and lawsuits. MIT had some interesting thoughts on how technology impacts linguistics, and we took an early look at how the very concept of copyright has been corrupted. Also, the Catholic Church made a digital decision: online confessions were declared not to be an option.

Finally, I think it's fair to say we were right to question Business Week's assertion that Apple "should not get back into the handheld market".

Thirty-Two Years Ago

It's one of the most famous and successful games of all time, and in some people's estimation it's the quintessential realization of what a "game" truly is. On June 6th, 1984, Tetris was first released.