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

Five Years Ago

This week in 2019, some investors were getting sick of AT&T’s obsession with mergers, leading the company to think about dumping DirecTV. Nintendo was ramping up its war on ROM websites, while Congress was moving forward with plans to massively increase copyright trolling. The DOJ helped boost Ed Snowden’s memoir by suing him for not running it by the CIA and NSA, and Ro Khanna was working on a bill to study the impact of FOSTA on sex workers. We were surprised when Josh Hawley, in an interview, directly responded to Techdirt’s criticism of his plans for the internet. And, this was the week that MoviePass officially shut down.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2014, we wrote about how copyright’s effectiveness as a censorship tool makes it so tempting to use that way, while a new study confirmed that the internet had contributed to massive profit levels in the legacy entertainment industry. Meanwhile, an IP lobbying group was pushing for a version of SOPA focused on trademark, Australia was hosting a forum about online infringement, and the Conan Doyle estate was asking the Supreme Court to put Sherlock Holmes back under copyright. Meanwhile, John Brennan was refusing to tell the Senate who okayed the CIA spying on the Senate, and the DOJ was seeking the ability for the FBI to hack into computers overseas with little oversight.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2009, we looked at even more copyright propaganda pushed on school children, which seems to never run out, and asked why content creators get control over derivative works. Joe Satriani and Coldplay settled their lawsuit over a melody, while a judge tossed out Universal Music’s lawsuit against Veoh. ASCAP and BMI were demanding payment for 30 second previews of songs on web stores, there were pushes to put DRM on televisions in both the US and the UK, and the movie industry was continuing to pointlessly attack fansub communities, while content owners were forcing Hulu to make its app less useful and appealing.