This is serious enough to post and share.
I am okay running the risk that I might be wrong. The cost of being right and keeping my mouth shut is too high.
RE: Revisions to Copyright Laws, simultaneously in a number of western countries, June 2019:
The conundrum, without the detail:
Reference: One year of EU copyright reform: Is the Internet still working?, 20-04-2020
Comments:
Stefan G (European) says:
I still have no idea how anyone could implement this (amended Copyright Law) into national law without building a massive surveillance structure. If every upload has to be checked for copyright BEFORE it becomes public then we need an automatic central service that checks everything that someone uploads or writes anywhere on the internet. And a structure like this will be abused for political reasons eventually. Just imagine what Orban could do with a system like this.
And who will offer the services to check the content? Until now only the big American companies have good content detection software, Google invested billions in this technology. . . .
Perhaps the difficulties in posting to website, I am experiencing today in North America (details below), are the maturity of what is possible under revised Canadian Copyright Legislation and with Google’s technology.
Difficulties on-going.
I think the censorship is serious. And probably legal under the Copyright reforms of 2019.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
ELABORATION, Jun 24, 2020 (message to person in USA):
Last year, Copyright Laws in Canada, Germany, the EU and other places were amended. Maybe in the U.S., too. In Europe there were large protests.
Today I continued problem-solving the difficulties in posting to my website – – trying to unravel what’s happening, I came across this:
Canadian Revised Copyright Laws
anything that is deemed to maybe have a copyright connection can be blocked.
An attempt to post the link to the Canadian Govt page on Copyright Law uploads, but is not accessible to the public – – it goes to “Error, page not found”. Same as anything related to RFK. In the past, always, the posting of a link to a Government website, at the very least, has not been a problem.
INSERT:
2020-06-23: I can post this; you can view it. There are no URL’s in it.
Between June and September I continue problem-solving. Experiment. Successes and failures. Worst is when NO new postings are accessible, those with and without URL’s. And regardless of content, even garbage isn’t accessible.
Back-end always works fine. And I can edit existing postings.
Then success with innocuous content and innocuous URL’s. Tip-toe along, don’t want to throw the trigger that puts all new postings into category “Error, page not found” (inaccessible to public viewing).
Work with Technical Support.
2020-09-11: The posting of Canadian Govt page on Copyright Law with URL’s STILL goes to “Error, page not found.” You cannot view it.
Continuing with June 23rd:
So, I can’t make public a posting for the Govt of Canada Copyright Laws? (Small irony!)
What does the attempted posting contain?
- the URL (can’t put it here in this posting, or you won’t be able to access the posting – you’ll get an error message! I rightly or wrongly conclude that the screening algorithms for copyright (anything that is deemed to maybe have a copyright connection can be blocked) includes some combination of criteria that includes URL plus subject matter. They appear to have developed an invisible trigger that is inserted in copied information like the title of the article or a short quote. The infected posting appears fine to me, on the back-end. But any attempt to view the posting from the front-side is taken immediately to “Error, page not found.” )
- the Title of the Act was on the posting – Copyright Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42)
- there was this line of information – Act current to 2020-06-02 and last amended on 2019-06-17
- also links (URL’s) to the text of the Act (can’t put those here either, or this posting will go to “Error”. )
The above were all copied from the Gov of Canada website. There was nothing more in the posting. As I say, posted like that a viewer is immediately taken to “Error, page not found”, a page external to my website. If I provide the same information but without usable URL’s, AND text not copied (I type it up), you can access the posting.
Surveillance capacity has increased dramatically since 2003 when Canadians, including myself, lodged the first complaints about the contracting-out to the American military of work done by Statistics Canada (census and surveys, the creation of detailed files on Canadians). Because of the information we shared through the years, Edward Snowden’s revelations were no surprise; he confirmed what we had been telling anyone who would listen.
It seems to me a short step from blocking the upload of the posting with the usable URL’s + certain subject matter, to blocking unwanted commentary based on subject matter alone.
Continuing with details . . .
RFK expressed frustration over getting information onto mainstream media. Similar has been expressed by Barbara Lowe, one example. I experience a lot of difficulty on my blog, now, with information such as from you, or re Julian Assange, or re journalists in Latin America who challenge American hegemony. It uploads, but is not accessible for public viewing — “Error, page not found”. Blocked. By technology.
Not all URL’s are blocked; some upload just fine, as always.
Journalism in Latin America is much stronger today than it was. People like Glen Greenwald who came to the aid of Edward Snowden have partnered with other journalists for independent media in Central, South America, and the Caribbean. I used to distribute relevant and selected material from them, with full acknowledgement of source, as has always been my practice. Not a slam-dunk today.
It is looking as though even the URL for a Government website is deemed to maybe have a copyright connection and can be blocked.
I wonder whether the Error, page not found capability that blocks access to postings related to Big Pharma, Julian Assange, Robert F Kennedy, Canada’s Copyright Law for Gods’ sake, and so on, is a consequence of Google’s investment of billions of dollars referred to in the Comments on the European article (One year of EU copyright reform: Is the Internet still working?, 20-04-2020)?
It is as though – following the enactment of the Legislation in 2019, as Google moved forward with what was now legal, the problems were not obvious. It was the early days. A year later, with the barn doors wide open, we need help from the neighbours.
/Sandra
Also, a new development. Email addresses that are @icloud.com (Apple, I think) – – I code the person’s NAME in my address book as usual so I know which of my distribution lists they are on. It does not affect the email address to which the email is sent. I’ve been doing that for 20 years. Today, done that way with @icloud email address, the person does not receive the email. If I remove my coding, the person receives the email. I assume it makes it easier for them – – algorithms for storing emails don’t know whether it’s a “same person”.
BUT the egregious part: I receive no notification that the email has NOT been delivered. I don’t find out that the person didn’t receive the email, and they have no way of knowing that there is information they should have received, but did not. Every single other person on the distribution list receives the emails. And if not I get a message to inform me. There happen to be friends on the distribution list who look out for each other, the only way the difficulty came to light.
/Sandra
Comments:
Stefan G says:
I still have no idea how anyone could implement this (amended Copyright Law) into national law without building a massive surveillance structure. If every upload has to be checked for copyright BEFORE it becomes public then we need an automatic central service that checks everything that someone uploads or writes anywhere on the internet. And a structure like this will be abused for political reasons eventually. Just imagine what Orban could do with a system like this.
And who will offer the services to check the content? Until now only the big American companies have good content detection software, Google invested billions in this technology. . . .