This Week In Techdirt History: August 13th – 19th

Five Years Ago

This week in 2018, we looked forward to the Senate oversight committee hearing that would force Ajit Pai to explain why the FCC made up a DDoS attack, but were disappointed (if not at all surprised) when it utterly failed to hold him accountable. Pai was also busy opposing the effort to update the definition of broadband, though he did manage to do one good thing too (broken clocks and so on). Meanwhile, we noted the irony of Disney whining about “overzealous copyright holders”, while also watching them suffer some early losses in their trademark and copyright suit against unlicensed birthday party characters.

This was also the week we launched our Fire In A Crowded Theater merchandise, which has since been moved to Threadless where it is still available.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2013, we were stunned when James Clapper, a confessed liar to congress, was charged with setting up the “independent” review over NSA surveillance, and soon the White House started trying to backpedal and change its tune about Clapper’s role. While CIA veterans and some Congressmen were busy issuing all-out attacks on Snowden, and others were trying to sound more sympathetic while ultimately just calling for him to stand trial, the latest report from the leaks revealed that NSA abused its rules to spy on Americans “thousands of times each year”. It became undeniably clear that there was no oversight of NSA surveillance, but that didn’t stop some from trying to spin failure and abuse as success.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2008, Italy tried and failed to ban the Pirate Bay and, of course, ended up driving more traffic to the site. Universities started to realize that the RIAA was taking advantage of them in its lawsuits against students, while the RIAA was involved in a case that was putting the “innocent infringement” defense to the test. Tiffany appealed the good decision finding eBay not liable for counterfeit products, while a Belgian court was reaching the same conclusion in a very similar lawsuit. And the UK High Court recognized that defamation standards should be changed online forums, while a US court helpfully found that, under Section 230, Wikimedia isn’t liable for statements on Wikipedia.