from the so-it-went dept
Five Years Ago
This week in 2020, Don Henley was using TikTok as a reason to push for stronger copyright laws, while some Senators were asking the FCC to reinterpret Section 230 in a ridiculous manner, and Ron Wyden was explaining how Trump and many others were totally wrong about 230. Meanwhile, we continued to follow developments from the George Floyd protests, including Chicago’s mayor trying to rein in the city’s police, the DEA trying to get in on surveilling the protests, and the role of police unions in making everything worse. We also wrote about what all this teaches us about the efficacy of peaceful protest.
Ten Years Ago
This week in 2015, newly released emails showed how industry lobbyists basically wrote the TPP. The Copyright Office was making a hamfisted attempt to address the problem of orphan works, and we noted how its ideas wouldn’t even be allowed if the TPP were ratified. Mitch McConnel was trying and failing to graft a bogus cybersecurity bill onto the NDAA, while an amendment to prevent backdoor searches and the backdooring of encryption was embraced by the House (which also blocked the White House from getting fast track authority on trade deals).
Fifteen Years Ago
This week in 2010, we looked at the question of whether copyright was holding back scientific research. We wrote about Hollywood’s hypocrisy on copyright infringement amidst the popularity of Glee, the ethical and legal problems of having patients sign over the copyright on their reviews of doctors, and some data on the rise and fall of the RIAA. Lots of targets of lawsuits from US Copyright Group were proclaiming their innocence, while one copyright lawyer was smacked down by a court for a bad faith lawsuit. Amidst all this we asked: is intellectual property itself unethical?
