from the that’s-that dept
Five Years Ago
This week in 2020, the first phase of the TikTok fight resolved with Oracle getting a lucrative hosting deal instead of buying the company in a deal driven by Trump-world insiders, while a court refused to block Trump’s executive order. At the same time, users were fighting to block the less-discussed part of the order that banned WeChat, while a look at details of the ban showed how it would make users of those apps less secure, not more. Meanwhile, Richard Liebowitz found himself in trouble again, and Alan Dershowitz was suing CNN for not airing more of what he said.
Ten Years Ago
This week in 2015, we got a confusing mess of a court ruling regarding fair use and DMCA takedowns, the Motion Picture Academy’s fight against GoDaddy finally ended in a loss, and Nintendo issued mass takedowns of YouTube videos featuring fan-created Mario levels. Miami Heat owner Ranaan Katz was hit with $155k in legal fees after losing a bogus copyright infringement lawsuit, while a patent troll that filed a bogus lawsuit against Zynga was hit with over a million in fees and sanctions. Meanwhile, Larry Lessig told the New Zealand court that the DOJ’s case against Kim Dotcom was a sham, and Carl Malamud responded to the state of Georgia’s lawsuit against him for posting its annotated code.
Fifteen Years Ago
This week in 2010, there was lots of noise on both sides of the debate over copyright, free culture, and user generated content. On one side, the bass player for the Vandals attacked the public domain and claimed it would destroy classical music, a filmmaker delivered a rant about how only people whose livelihood depends on copyright can really understand it, and a Canadian music industry spokesman argued that allowing user-generated content keeps piracy alive. On the flipside, director Jean-Luc Godard said there’s no such thing as intellectual property and donated to an MP3 downloader’s defense, and Goo Goo Dolls front man John Rzeznik owned up to using LimeWire and liking a fan-made music video more than the official one.
