from the as-it-went dept
Five Years Ago
This week in 2018, a court shut down attempts by ISPs to use the net neutrality repeal to dodge lawsuits for bad service, while California was trying to keep its push for its own net neutrality law alive (at the same time as lobbyists were descending on the state to shape a new, rushed privacy law), and a congressional effort to save net neutrality was stalling out. The EFF launched a lawsuit to stop FOSTA/SESTA, China censored John Oliver over Winnie the Pooh jokes, and the Monkey Selfie case continued (while the Dancing Baby case did not).
Ten Years Ago
This week in 2013, we looked at just how hard the MPAA was working to screw over the visually impaired, though they didn’t succeed in killing the treaty. US officials were beginning to realize the extent of the information that Snowden had, while the NSA deleted a fact sheet on its surveillance programs after the Senate pointed out it was full of lies. Obama called Snowden a “hacker” despite him not having done any hacking, while more and more senators were demanding answers about the NSA, and we took a look at how three decades of conservative Chief Justices had turned the FISA court into a rubber stamp.
Fifteen Years Ago
This week in 2008, the MPAA was trying to explain why proof shouldn’t be necessary in copyright infringement cases, while the recording industry called radio “a kind of piracy”, and the UK government told ISPs that they had to be copyright cops for record labels. Brazil was looking at following Antigua in requesting permission from the WTO to ignore US copyright patents, and the FBI was for some reason spending its time tracking down the leaker of a new Guns N’ Roses album. Meanwhile, people were still trying to figure out how always-connected devices would change everything from work to knowledge itself.
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