Five Years Ago

This week in 2015, we got a big, confusing mess of a ruling on fair use and the DMCA in the famous "dancing baby" video lawsuit. We also saw a loss for the Motion Picture Academy after its five-year crusade to make GoDaddy pay for "infringing" websites, and the owner of the Miami Heat was hit with $155,000 in legal fees after losing his bogus copyright lawsuit against a blogger. Meanwhile, China was beginning a big push to get American tech companies to agree to its rules, while the DOJ was backing down from charges against a professor driven by China hysteria.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2010, Yelp got yet another Section 230 victory against an attempt to hold it liable for bad reviews, while a reputation management company was threatening to launch a similar lawsuit against TripAdvisor in the UK, in what appeared to be a publicity stunt. A terrible appeals court ruling was killing the first sale doctrine, while Craigslist was engaged in a fight with South Carolina's attorney general and we wondered why other internet companies weren't standing up for it. And the latest big DRM-breaking event happened with the apparent leak of the HDCP master key which was soon confirmed by Intel.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2005, the fights over online reviews were in their infancy, with doctors leading the charge. Ebay spent an eyewatering amount of money to purchase Skype, and we noted this meant the company needed to become an expert on net neutrality, fast. The RIAA was going around overstating the results of the Grokster case, while the courts in Taiwan were contradicting an earlier ruling on the legality of file sharing software by sending file sharing executives to jail. And Lego was suing a Danish artist for using her middle name — "Lego" — to sign her paintings.