Wikipedia Moves To Delete the Free Speech Flag 258
decora writes "After a version of the PS3 Free Speech Flag (from the Yale Law & Tech blog) was deleted from Wikipedia, for being a copyright violation, discussion turned to the original Free Speech Flag, from the HD DVD / AACS encryption key controversy. The result is that this flag too (currently in use on six different wikipedias) has now been nominated for deletion."
5 fucking color stripes in a square. (Score:5, Insightful)
this is ridiculous. someday, someone will be able to claim 'rights' in the arrangement that someone's crap makes when out of their ass.
Re:5 fucking color stripes in a square. (Score:5, Funny)
this is ridiculous. someday, someone will be able to claim 'rights' in the arrangement that someone's crap makes when out of their ass.
didn't you know? Jar Jar Binks is copyrighted.
Re:5 fucking color stripes in a square. (Score:5, Insightful)
Meesa poopsa?
Re:5 fucking color stripes in a square. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is where we are down to, with this copyright/intellectual property shit. i mean, now arrangements of colors are being owned/dominated.
No, this is Wikipedia process-wankery and why they're losing editors in droves.
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No, this is Wikipedia process-wankery and why they're losing editors in droves.
It would be interesting to survey those whom leave. In comparison, most of the people I know whom left, hated the deletionist griefers. They are why I refuse to participate.
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Ditto, the deletionists are why I have such mixed feelings about wikipedia. I don't see any good reason a legit article shouldn't be deleted based on some persons definition of fame.
Re:5 fucking color stripes in a square. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is it so vital to classify stuff as "garbage" and "non-garbage"? (The fact that you chose to use the word "garbage" with negative connotation says a lot.) Good stuff gets looked at, the rest (shallow self-promotion, astroturfing, libel, etc.) gets corrected if it's something a lot of people will run into. Given the cost of running Wikipedia already, it's not like a few tens of thousands of pages is going to make a difference in a digital world.
The thing I loved about Wikipedia back in the day was the ability to find obscure stuff. Yeah, I could search for it online, but that didn't give me the context. It was a real joy to just lose yourself reading links in Wikipedia. But, after seeing a bunch of articles I care about get removed, it's less of a joy because I have to wonder what other information was deemed "not notable" enough for me to read.
The ultimate problem with "deletionism" is that people with no real knowledge of the topic are often the ones calling for deletion. Or, worse, you get someone who has a personal interest in deleting an article as "revenge", as in the case of the Old Man Murray issue from last week.
Here's my "faling out of love witih Wikipedia" story: An article on "Dragon Kill Points" (DKP) was deleted back in the day by someone who thought it wasn't notable; as a respected MMORPG developer, I argued it was a very notable and important concept to the field. I managed to help put off two deletion attempts on the basis of "not notable" in the span of a few months, only to have the article deleted later in a "speedy" process. The first two proposals came from the same person (after the first one was an unambiguous "keep" result), and the three requests came all within 4 months of each other. This seems a bit beyond someone wanting to "clean up" the site. Of course, the article was added back some years later, but it's a shadow of its former self and not nearly as useful.
Lesson learned! Not is a lot of potentially useful information missing, I also learned that anything I contributed in my field might be wiped out by someone who just doesn't like it. I'll spend my time doing something more useful than contributing or using Wikipedia, thanks.
Re:5 fucking color stripes in a square. (Score:5, Funny)
Too bad they can't arrange to lose the right editors.
Wikipedia appears to be the Web 2.0 equivalent of urban flight and blight: anyone with a clue is ditching fast, and pretty soon, the only ones left in the "inner city" will be criminals and psychos
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Wikipedia appears to be the Web 2.0 equivalent of urban flight and blight: anyone with a clue is ditching fast, and pretty soon, the only ones left in the "inner city" will be criminals and psychos
And the politicians and paid corporate astroturfers. Oh wait, redundant.
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No, this is Wikipedia wp:process-wankery and why they're losing editors[[opinion]] in droves[[citation needed]].
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Sony is just testing the waters to see how far they can go in their "California" matter and Wikipedia just doesn't want to waste resources in the eventual court battle. While I'm not going to applaud Wikipedia, I can't throw too many rocks at them either.
Soon someone big is going to have to deal with it and I get the feeling that it isn't going to be favorable for Sony, who has been pretty reckless since they don't have a wold conquering media format to rest their laurels on. Until then it is probably bette
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then sony can get their ass straightened out and properly compliant with modern standards of liberty and freedom of knowledge and information.
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I am unsure how I feel about this. While I believe that IP and copyright are getting way out of hand I ask myself how would I react to a company flying my countries flag, family crest, company logo. How would you feel if Walmart changed its logo to the American flag? Would you want them to be seen as directly representing the US.
I don't know..I can see both sides. Not sure I agree with either.
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For example: America's Best eyewear [twopair.com]
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Many companies incorporate a US flag, or an avatar of it, in their logos
Define "most"
Why would he define most? He used MANY.
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Re:5 fucking color stripes in a square. (Score:5, Informative)
Wikipedia doesn't challenge copyright.
For example they removed the List of 210 Television designated market areas (DMAs), because Nielsen complained it was copyrighted. Even after I provided a *public domain* version from the Federal Communications Commission (they call them 'television markets' for purposes of regulation), wikipedia still refused to allow it to be posted.
Don't look to wikipedia to challenge corporations. They won't do it.
Oh No, not another thing! (Score:5, Informative)
Don't look to wikipedia to challenge corporations. They won't do it.
Well, that's 2 things they're not good for now:
1. Reliable information.
2. Challenging corporations.
However, they do excel at wasting my time and deleting things. So, it does make up for it in some way, I think.
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And even if they do present reliable information they present it in the driest most boring tone ever created. They suck the fun out of learning. When I was a child I used to get excited when I saw a shelf of encyclopedias. I can't imagine wikipedia does the same for kids these days.
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This is insufficient for those of us with a basic knowledge of calculus, linear algebra, diffyq, stats, etc who are trying to learn more advanced math that builds on it.
Re:Oh No, not another thing! (Score:5, Funny)
You forgot solemnly looking at you. They're good at solemnly looking at you.
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Wikipedia is great, truly great, for one thing:
1. Funding Jimmy Wales' junkets.
He's a constant source of comedy gold for gossip rags like Vallywag.
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thats the fault of american system - the one with the money wins the court.
Re:5 fucking color stripes in a square. (Score:4, Interesting)
The deletionist griefers at wikipedia enjoy filling their empty lives by destroying others work. Thats why its gone, because you cared, and they wanted the rush of destroying something you wanted. If you expressed deep desire for a table of American Morse Code letters or perhaps semaphone signals, they would delete them. Everything else is rationalization and story telling. On both sides.
Re:5 fucking color stripes in a square. (Score:4, Insightful)
tl;dr version: some people just want to watch the world burn.
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Thats why its gone, because you cared, and they wanted the rush of destroying something you wanted. If you expressed deep desire for a table of American Morse Code letters or perhaps semaphone signals, they would delete them. Everything else is rationalization and story telling. On both sides.
I'd like to officially express my deep desire for the deletionistas to live long and healthy lives. With any luck, they'll get right to work figuring out how to die in a fire.
Re:5 fucking color stripes in a square. (Score:4, Informative)
At least they haven't removed this one yet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deletionpedia [wikipedia.org]
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and there is just as a big a problem with people who don't seem to understand what wikipedia is. Wikipedia is not and has never been a record of all human knowledge. Yet, there are plenty who want to use it to promote their special snowflake because they know how popular it is and it deserves such an audience!
They'll make all kinds of arguments about this and that, and about how their cousin Bob was searching for that very topic just that morning and he has cancer, so it was his last internet search and tha
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That is where it started. It has since gotten out of hand. Plenty (and I mean PLENTY) of good, useful, encyclopedic articles have been deleted. Most by people who have no idea what the fuck the articles were even about. Find something in the "community" rules (=cabal rules) to hang the article with and do it. It's a sport to them.
I have stopped contributing to Wikipedia for this and some other reasons (among which the senseless timewasting in "discussion" pages with sockpuppetry, cabal-mentality, and inane
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en cy clo pe di a
1. a book or set of books containing articles on various topics, usually in alphabetical arrangement, covering all branches of knowledge.
The only reason encyclopedias didn't add more information was because it wasn't feasible. Wikipedia was doing great, why would you want to limit it to only a subset of human knowledge? Information that I find trivial might interest my neighbor, so why would I delete an article about his precious snowflake? Why should my article about belly button lint have to be relevant?
Storage is cheap. Compared to wiki articles storage is insanely cheap. Someone can add articles about every flower in his local park and i
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Wikipedia doesn't challenge copyright.
For example they removed the List of 210 Television designated market areas (DMAs), because Nielsen complained it was copyrighted. Even after I provided a *public domain* version from the Federal Communications Commission (they call them 'television markets' for purposes of regulation), wikipedia still refused to allow it to be posted.
Don't look to wikipedia to challenge corporations. They won't do it.
They'd probably let you keep your submission assuming you put the money in escrow to cover any potential court battle. Otherwise, are you surprised they choose to take potentially infringing things down?
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Re:5 fucking color stripes in a square. (Score:5, Interesting)
"This is where we are down to, with this copyright/intellectual property shit. i mean, now arrangements of colors are being owned/dominated. "
Arrangements of the 7 existing (western) musical notes are much worse.
Re:5 fucking color stripes in a square. (Score:5, Insightful)
You're taking things too broadly. Its a case of encoding.
Its very possible for me to grab something which has a copyright, convert it to binary and then convert it into:
1. Colours
2. Strings
3. Numbers
4. Music
So while "Owning Arrangements of Colour" sounds stupid in principle, what you could do if this was not the case would completely destroy copyright on many things. Now you could say that's a good thing, but meh.
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You're taking things too broadly. Its a case of encoding.
Its very possible for me to grab something which has a copyright, convert it to binary and then convert it into:
1. Colours 2. Strings 3. Numbers 4. Music
So while "Owning Arrangements of Colour" sounds stupid in principle, what you could do if this was not the case would completely destroy copyright on many things. Now you could say that's a good thing, but meh.
Isn't copyright supposed to cover a particular expression? You can't tell me that this flag and that number can be considered the same expression.
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So you're telling me that if you write a song, and I copy it to a wav file, a mp3,mp4 file, a wmv file, a [whatever format they use for writing notes], a flash file with the music in it, a graphical representation of the music (either as a waveform or its notes), a video of how the song can be played on a particular instrument...
You only own one of these expressions?
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How?
This means you own the copyright on your song of these numbers if anything.
How is this even a copyright issue? These numbers are not a creative work, they are just facts.
Re:encoding (Score:3)
Godel's Revenge! Come on kids, let's encode!
Take the 100 million digits of Pi - I bet somewhere in there is the decimal version of the key. Then all you need is a marker and off you go!
Convert it to Base 4 and I garner it's in our genetic code! Can they stop you from having a copy of your genetic code? Or will they make "placeholders" illegal?
Go to a grocery store and buy stuff in a certain order! Can they stop you from shopping for food?
Re:5 fucking color stripes in a square. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is where we are down to, with this copyright/intellectual property shit. i mean, now arrangements of colors are being owned/dominated.
The funny thing is that the flag is MORE worthy of copyright protection than the original key. If you pick 5 random colors and put them on a flag, that's creative work worthy of copyright protection. An arbitrary encryption key is the result of a purely mechanical process and should not meet the threshold of originality [wikipedia.org].
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this is ridiculous. someday, someone will be able to claim 'rights' in the arrangement that someone's crap makes when out of their ass.
Not if there's prior fart.
It's the wrong key anyway! (Score:5, Informative)
It's not the key that lets you sign your own code. It's not the key that lets you decrypt the OS. It's not the key that lets you decrypt games. It doesn't let you do anything interesting. Huh? What? Yes, you heard me.
It's a useless key that is used to authenticate factory service dongles (which will only let you run signed executables anyway, and those signing keys are secure as of the latest firmware and will never be obtained). Its only purpose so far was to perform downgrades (as released in a commercial product using stolen service executables) in order to use another commercial product (by ostensibly the same company) which used an exploit to enable game piracy (using a whole bunch of other methods unrelated to it). All of this predated the 27c3 presentation and geohot's release. It's useless now and has never served any "master" key purpose. It was called the "master key used to generate service dongle keys", then of course the clueless news websites just shortened that to "master key".
The PS3 has tons of keys and you can't "do everything" with one key. You need three or four to run stuff via metldr, that's why geohot released a whole bunch of keys, not just one (none of which are the one that was used here). But if you must pick one "representative" key to obfuscate and post and distribute and make an icon out of, at least pick Da from geohot's keyset (starts with C5). That's the metldr private key, originally stored at some vault at Sony's HQ, calculated thanks to their massive signing screwup, and which can be used to sign code that all existing PS3s will execute, forever (you still need to encrypt it, but signing is ideologically more important). And for fuck's sake, please let go of the "46 DC" dongle key already. Please.
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Copyright? (Score:3)
This is where we are down to, with this copyright/intellectual property shit.
this is ridiculous. someday, someone will be able to claim 'rights' in the arrangement that someone's crap makes when out of their ass.
Why are the keys copyrighted? Are they an expression of artistic creation?
Aren't they rather a "trade secret"?
Re:262144 pixels on a grid. (Score:4, Insightful)
The point is not about the flag, it's about the number that they claim that they own copyright to.
I claim 5. Everyone who wants to use a 5 out there better contact me because I'm taking licensing fees.
Re:262144 pixels on a grid. (Score:4, Funny)
Worse than that... "5" is clearly a derivative work of your product.
This seems simple enough to fix (Score:2)
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There was a copyright owner (Score:3)
That's not right. While I fail to see how the key itself, as a short sequence of arbitrary numbers, can be copyrighted, the flag is a creative work and is just as eligible for copyright as anything else. The wiki page lists an author who released the image into the public domain.
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You're right. I was thinking of the copyright owner of the encryption key, of which the flag is a derivative work.
For all you non-Americans . . (Score:5, Interesting)
This controversy is a metaphor of the beautiful paradox that is the USA.
We have a flag for free speech, yet the flag is legally unavailable unless a contract with the owner of the flag is secured.
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Someone just needs to find an already existing (preferably public domain) song whose notes, when encoded a certain way, have the key in them. Or, as someone mentioned, pi. Or an excerpt of the US constitution. Better yet, use the Bible, because there is no way in hell that the courts will back banning portions of the bible from being distributed. The political shitstorm from that would be of epic proportions.
Rather than a song (despite the deliciousness of the irony!), I propose using a literary work as the
Is this a joke? (Score:3, Interesting)
This can't be for serious. They're deleting an image that represents free speech because it violates copyright law?
Am I missing something or is this really as stupid as it sounds?
This is on par with that whole debacle of 1984 getting remotely recalled from kindle's.
Re:Is this a joke? (Score:5, Interesting)
Am I missing something or is this really as stupid as it sounds?
I'm afraid it really is this stupid.
Wikipedia has become more of a bureaucracy than an "open" encyclopedia. [citation needed]
Re:Is this a joke? (Score:4, Interesting)
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I'm afraid it really is this stupid. Wikipedia has become more of a bureaucracy than an "open" encyclopedia. [citation needed]
To that you can add NPOV, and notoriety.
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This can't be for serious. They're deleting an image that represents free speech because it violates copyright law?
Am I missing something or is this really as stupid as it sounds?
This is on par with that whole debacle of 1984 getting remotely recalled from kindle's.
It's an excellent expression of art. I'd go so far as to say that the intent of the author was for precisely this to happen. The key is meaningless, the flag is meaningless, the fact that it's being taken down is a very powerful message and comment on where free speech is at.
waiting for my patent on "0" to be approved (Score:2)
It still astounds me that the (current interpretation of the) law allows someone to own all the rights to a number
Re:waiting for my patent on "0" to be approved (Score:4, Insightful)
In some ways it makes sense, but there needs to be better defined limits.
Everything is representable as a number. Software, this post, a scan of the Mona Lisa. Where do you draw the line?
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Even drawing the line at a creative work is problematic. For the next super-secret encryption key, they will make the flag first, claim they chose the colors for the aesthetics, and then use the number.
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And we'll just use a different colorspace. Invent one, if we have to. Scarlet, Orange, Navy, Yellow or something.
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In general, the line is drawn at the threshold of originality. [wikipedia.org]
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You should not draw the line. Ever. That's the whole point. Hindering the progress of humanity for selfish or covet means is wrong. Or in the words of Ben Franklin, a genius, founding father of the greatest democracy yet made, prolific inventor, and scientific discoverer, "As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously."
You can disagree with Ben Franklin if you want to,
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Fine. I'm patenting "1".
Now you and I can sue everyone who uses a binary computer.
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If you get to patent "0", then I get to patent "O".
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Software is a string of binary - number
Music can be digitised - string of binary - number
Images can be digitised - string of binary - number
Top Secret Military files - string of binary - number
Its a question of encoding.
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This has nothing to do with patents. It has to do with the concept that the key, under the DMCA, "effectively controls access to a protected work".
So you don't even have to spend money on a patent. You just have to use a public domain cryptosystem (or roll your own, if you can avoid the patent minefield) and hand it a frequently-used-on-the-internet number as a symmetric key. Then go around demanding that people remove that number from various websites, because publishing it violates the DMCA.
Size matters (Score:2)
Every application, game, song, movie, image, story, or whatever that is stored in digital form is just a number - a really big number, but still just a number. You can argue that some numbers are too small to be copyrighted, but I don't think it's reasonable to say no numbers are copyrightable.
Size matters. Words and short phrases, slogans, titles, etc. are ineligible for copyright, despite the fact that they are combinations of words just like a book or play. It is irrelevant that anything can be represented numerically. I cannot possibly see how the encryption key can be protected by copyright. It is functional, it is an extremely short sequence, it is arbitrary and required no creative effort... in short, it is everything that copyright is not. If it truly is protected by copyright, I would li
Is this even a thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
This thing looks like it was invented by some self-aggrandizing dweeb who is now trying to get a slashdot flash mob to save his "original research."
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Re:Is this even a thing? (Score:4, Informative)
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Not to mention that once I read up on the "Free Speech Flag", I completely failed to see how it was about Free Speech at all. I could see how it was a 'clever' encoding of some decryption key, and now that's all it seems to represent to me.. somebody's idea of sneaking-in-plain-sight a decryption key past some manner of perceived Big Brother that comes down hard on those who dare publish it 'as is'.
Free Speech would be just publishing the key, in relevant articles, period. Not hiding it behind 'flag color
The online encyclopedia almost anyone can edit (Score:2)
Wikipolice? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like those pages just never existed.
It makes you wonder what else is going on inside Wikipedia.
Here's an idea (Score:2)
I find it interesting (and maybe a little disturbing) that Wikipedia, which was supposed to be open for everyone, and always seemed to represent freedom, democracy, etc. now has a "secret police" system. There are a group of editors there who can just make pages... disappear. The logs are hidden from everyone (even the admins).
It's like those pages just never existed.
I always wondered what type of chaos there would be if everyone who has ever had an article deleted on Wikipedia just went and added them back in. All at the same time.
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Why doesn't someone just mirror Wikipedia in real time and ignore all the deletion changesets?
Although I will say that Wikipedia is a good example of how 'open source' democracy is doomed to fail in short order. Ideals always take a back seat to reality.
Try something like that with git and some plain ole source code, and you'll rapidly learn the pain of merges.
Now you could mirror wikipedia but refuse to completely delete pages, or refuse to remove more than 50% of the text at a time or whatever. At which point the deletionist griefers will find a way around your protection, so as to destroy. Such as commit ten reverts each of which deletes 10% of the text, or let the file name stay the same but change the contents to some hash functions, etc.
Why the surprise? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wikipedia hasn't been about free speech since about thirty seconds after inception.
It's about control of information by a cabal (admittedly a very LOOSELY affiliated cabal, but a cabal nonetheless) of editors. All of whom have their own particular agendas and axes to grind. And it's not about what you know, but whom.
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Oh, Wikipedia? Okay. For a second there, I thought you were talking about Anonymous.
Re:Why the surprise? (Score:4, Insightful)
or, just life, in general.
who do these kids, today, think they are? the world is just as broken as it was years ago. why do they expect justice and fairness when the world was NEVER supposed to be like that?
in life, it has always been about 'who you know'. in a way, wiki helps teach that. ugly lesson but no one (other than your pastor and some stupid disney movie) said life was fair or just.
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Where exactly can you find an objective collection of information? It doesn't exist.
Wikiwho? (Score:2, Informative)
Isn't Wikipedia that website that deletes knowledge in a time where 2TB drives cost less than 100 bucks?
Super Aspergers who control nothing in real-life but shoot milk out of their male breasts when they can label something they are not interested in "not noteworthy" and delete it then?
That place is an asshole... full of assholes...
The courts use "good faith" (Score:2)
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You shouldn't be able to copyright or trademark a number. That is just absurd. In your example you mention a list of numbers and a math equation, sure you are in good faith but if Sony has a copyright or a trademark on that number it still doesn't stop them from taking you to court and making you fold simply because they have the resources to tie you up in court for years. So you might be in right but because you don't have millions of dollars to spend to defend yourself, you'll lose. Since we use numbers t
Dear Wikipedia (Score:2)
As long as your getting ready to jump the shark anyway, could you be so kind as to delete all reference to the number 5? I fancy that number, so I'm claiming it as mine now in any and all manifestations.
Thanks
Flag of Japan (Score:2)
Sony? (Score:2)
Was this actually initiated by Sony? Or was this a deletionist getting his rocks off?
Rainbow tables have long been used for cracking (Score:2)
...but this is the first time I've seen rainbow flags used in this manner.
Fabulous idea :)
Just in case anyone's wondering (Score:5, Informative)
Just in case anyone's wondering what the fuss is about.
Use protected political speech (Score:2)
OK then, never mind a flag, and never mind Wikipedia and its ilk.
How about writing some legitimate political commentary with the key threaded through it? Design it so that there is no way to remove any of the key material without detracting in a significant way from the content of the political commentary.
It would be interesting to see a court trying to justify itself if it orders that taken down.
Check the talk page (Score:4, Informative)
Lot of complaining, simple solution (Score:2)
For all the people who are complaining about the deletionist asshats download Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] and provide a *fork*. Tell people it's better - spread the word.
If you care, make the effort.
That appeal from Jimbo Wales (Score:3)
falls on deaf ears when people invest time and knowledge in Wikipedia only to have the content deleted.
Easy solution (Score:3)
Come on people. The Wikipedia process provides solutions for situations like this.
1) Find a cell phone. But it's gotta be from 2002/2003. This is a must. Serious business and all.
2) Take a photo of the screen with the Free Speech Flag on it. Make sure you cut off like half the image, blow it out and dutch it too.
3) Delete the image already on Wikipedia
4) Post your new image.
5) Add an anime reference to the bottom of the article.
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Why is it irony? WP's article says the "free speech flag" apparently is the HD-DVD key. While the whole DVD key scheme is annoying, turning their key into your flag is, well, waving a flag the MPAA's face for a lawsuit.
True Names (Score:5, Informative)
The key amounts to a "true name [wikipedia.org]", a label which is identical to the natural essence of that which is named. I'd never considered it anything other than an amusing literary device until now. Calling it "the HD-DVD key" is akin to "He Who Must Not Be Named". To state the true name itself - which is the only way to give an accurate reference thereto - is to reveal the great secret (of a now-defunct format - heh) and incur the wrath of the MPAA. To reference it using a peculiar sequence of colors is playing "I'm not saying it" games, akin to trying to tell someone the secret name without actually saying it. You cannot tell someone not to use that sequence of numbers, a short enough sequence that it could in fact be used by accident, without violating the [potential] copyright.
Upshot: the key amounts to a true name, and you can't assert legal right to a name and then prohibit anyone from ever using it (even in appropriate context). It wasn't copyrighted, it can't be copyrighted (heck, the copyright notice would be longer than what's copyrighted), and to ban use of the "free speech flag" is tantamount to fearing the utterance of "Voldemort" - silly. If there is in fact an issue, it need be fixed by means other than fearing a "true name".
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turning their key into your flag is, well, waving a flag the MPAA's face for a lawsuit.
Uhm... so? Are you arguing that because the MPAA might get upset we shouldn't say it?
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wait, you're saying that the number sequence:
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
is somehow special?
let me save that so that I can do some analysis on this, later on.