This Week In Techdirt History: May 26th – June 1st

Five Years Ago

This week in 2019, a report showed how EU ISPs were happily ignoring net neutrality rules. We wondered why Congress was moving forward with its plan to encourage more copyright trolling, and then Congress also started pushing a bill to bring back patent trolls. China was, once again, using the US’s obsession with intellectual property against it, and we got a wild true story of copyright’s failures when learning The Verve was only just about to start getting royalties for Bittersweet Symphony. We also took a look at how the DHS’s social media monitoring was causing collateral damage and not achieving much.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2014, an appeals court overturned one of Prenda’s rare legal wins, while a magistrate judge recommended that targets of Malibu Media copyright trolling be able to use the copyright misuse defense. The data on “six strikes” programs suggested there was little real impact, Nintendo was in one of its tiffs with YouTubers, and we had one of our many issues with Google AdSense back when it was still on the site. Meanwhile, the House reauthorized funding of the intelligence community will refusing to consider amendments that would limit domestic surveillance.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2009, the CEO of Sony Pictures was doubling down on his stance that the internet is bad, period. The panic over “texting” was in full swing with claims that it was causing all sorts of physiological problems for kids and killing good manners. Record labels failed in their attempt to stretch the Pirate Bay ruling, the BSA was issuing some vibes-based, evidence-free stats about Canadian piracy, and a study showed how DRM harms free expression. Meanwhile, we looked at the tech law record of newly-nominated SCOTUS justice Sonia Sotomayor, and a bunch of groups were teaming up to question a recent ruling on Section 230.