usa technology

           By  Chuck Black European Union (EU) negotiators have agreed to the wording of Articles 11 and 13 of the infamous EU  Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market , known more commonly as the EU copyright directive. As outlined in the February 13th, 2019 IPPro Magazine post, " EU copyright directive: article 11 and 13 text agreed ," the final vote on whether to implement the directives could occur as soon as March 25th - 27th. As noted in this blog, most recently in the August 20th, 2018 post, " Breaking for Vacation and to Research Issues Relating to Online Press Freedom: Back on September 4th, " the legislation will have a substantial effect on freedom of speech on the internet, news coverage in general and the ability to link directly to primary source material for news and commentary. The BBC has weighed in on the EU copyright directive with its February 13th, 2019 post, " What is Article 13? The EU's copyright dire...

           By Al Calder Last week's announcement that the Canadian government planned to spend a larger lump sum of Federal funding to prop up traditional Canadian media outlets than it annually gives to the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), seems more than a little disconcerting. Perhaps the Justin Trudeau Liberals simply believe that it is more important who you hear the news from than it is to get the story right, create new jobs in media and aerospace, or even " go boldly where no one has gone before! "  Perhaps those other concerns are just different line items in the next Federal budget. Or maybe not. Graphic c/o AZ Quotes . Anyway, and as outlined in the November 21st, 2018 National Post article, " $600M in federal funding for media 'a turning point in the plight of newspapers in Canada, " the largest recipients of government funding under the new program will be the struggling, legacy print media industry. The article quoted Paul Godfrey, the CEO o...

           By  Chuck Black The Commercial Space blog will be taking a short break to enjoy the final two weeks of summer and go to the beach. We'll also be doing some background research on one possible American and one far more probable European Union (EU) legislative initiative directly related to news coverage and freedom of speech issues. Both have the potential to change, disrupt or even shut down almost all online news services, including this blog. The first. a US based initiative, is related to a series of potential amendments to Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act of 1996 . Section 230 has been traditionally interpreted by US courts as saying that operators of internet services (including social media outlets, such as Menlo Park CA based FaceBook , San Francisco CA based Twitter  and others) are " not to be construed as publishers " and are therefore not legally liable for the words of third parties who use their service...