This Week In Techdirt Historical past: October twelfth – 18th

from the that-was-that dept

5 Years In the past

This week in 2020, Ajit Pai put the ultimate bullet in web neutrality and determined to maneuver ahead with unconstitutional rulemaking on Part 230, whereas Clarence Thomas joined the brigade of opposing 230, and Congress launched one more anti-230 invoice, as a result of certain why not? We seemed on the fairly crummy outcomes of the present Supreme Court docket time period on points we care about, and devoted an episode of the podcast to what the TikTok order means for innovation. However certainly the most important story was when Fb and Twitter tried to restrict the unfold of a sketchy NY Put up story about Hunter Biden’s laptop computer, leading to an enormous mess of ridiculousness that led to Twitter adjusting its hacked doc coverage.

Ten Years In the past

This week in 2015, the US, Canada and Australia determined to screw over poor nations within the TPP as a result of Large Pharma wasn’t pleased, whereas the USTR was fishing for lecturers to astroturf in favor of the settlement. James Comey claimed “dozens” of terrorists had evaded the FBI due to encryption, whereas the administration mentioned it wouldn’t search encryption backdoors, and Chuck Grassley was asking the DOJ to get again within the enterprise of pushing for them. We additionally wrote about how unhealthy copyright regulation makes us much less secure, and filed a response to the White Home’s request for feedback on its mental property enforcement technique.

Fifteen Years In the past

This week in 2010, we wrote about how ACTA would flip non-public, non-commercial file sharing into felony infringement, whereas the BSA was falsely claiming that ACTA was a treaty that had already been signed by 37 nations. We additionally seemed on the rise of mass copyright infringement shakedown factories within the US, and shortly obtained an amusing demonstration when one such group sued one other over trademark infringement, and began to note how these teams have been consistently copying one another. In the meantime, an anti-piracy group within the Netherlands was caught planting proof in a case in opposition to a Usenet supplier.

Filed Beneath: historical past, look again