Five Years Ago

This week in 2020, an excellent piece in the New York Times looked how years of copyright maximalism were killing pop music. AG William Barr was sparring with Apple over the DOJ’s ability to crack iPhones, and Devin Nunes was extending his legal threats to fellow congressional representatives. We looked at the implications of Chrome’s move to stomp out third party cookies, and at another example from YouTube about how content moderation at scale is impossible. Also, we were very disappointed to see Larry Lessig file a SLAPP suit.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2015, Hollywood privately acknowledged that its six strikes program wasn’t having much impact, the Chilling Effects archive of DMCA takedowns deleted itself from Google, and we received a legal threat from a Linux developer for our reporting on the bogus YouTube takedowns he issues. The FCC announced plans to raise the definition of broadband to a minimum of 25 Mbps, the USTR was still insisting that listening to the public is the same thing as transparency, and the DOJ got involved in the trademark dispute over the Washington Redskins.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2010, we looked at the still-developing impact of the FTC’s disclosure rules for online endorsements. We also examined why big corporations wanted to keep ACTA negotiations secret, and tried to read between the lines of what was going on with the agreement. BREIN shut down hundreds of torrent websites that apparently nobody ever used, Grooveshark was sued yet again in a continuing trend of negotiation-via-lawsuit, and record labels were demanding cash from the founders of The Pirate Bay. But amidst all this, in a pleasant surprise, the administrator of OiNK was found not guilty.

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