This Week In Techdirt History: December 25th – 31st

Five Years Ago

This week in 2017, people were still discovering that their dead loved ones had been used for fake comments supporting the death of net neutrality, while New York State was considering its own net neutrality law, and we wondered if Verizon would give back the taxpayer subsidies it got under Title II. We learned that the European Commission had hidden yet another report showing its assumptions about copyright were wrong, and took a closer look at Europe's multi-pronged attack on free speech. Meanwhile, the FBI was celebrating its takedown of another manufactured terrorist threat, and Facebook's latest transparency report revealed a whole lot of government surveillance and bad copyright takedown requests.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2012, we wrote about how even though a new SOPA was not likely, there was still plenty of damage that could be done. The folks at TorrentFreak discovered that Hollywood studio IP addresses were sharing Hollywood movies on BitTorrent, and we also learned that EMI was actively giving away MP3s that it was accusing Michael Robertson of downloading illegally. We took a look at how the NYT's paywall was going, and at how the EU's data retention law could violate fundamental rights. Meanwhile, the USPTO was set to hit a new record in granting utility patents, while Carnegie Mellon won what might have been the largest patent verdict ever.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2007, Hollywood was continuing its worldwide push to make ISPs block sites like the Pirate Bay, and was also wringing its hands about digital archives. Apple was seeking to patent some anti-piracy technology, the MPAA was realizing that proprietary DRM'd screener DVDs were a waste, and the EU was beginning to enforce fashion copyrights. We also saw a classic try to copyright something really old" situation with a copyright fight over the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Meanwhile, we took a look back at the year in patent insanity, and wrote about how the stories of great inventors" are often... misleading.