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Wikipedia Moves To Delete the Free Speech Flag
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."
This is where we are down to, with this copyright/intellectual property shit. i mean, now arrangements of colors are being owned/dominated.
this is ridiculous. someday, someone will be able to claim 'rights' in the arrangement that someone's crap makes when out of their ass.
Read radical news here
There's only one question here that needs answered: Has the current copyright owner released the flag for use under a compatible license?
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
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.
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.
Is this because people are scared there *might* be some legal ground for a take down or do they actually have some footing in this case?
Well I guess wikipedia's right to free speech includes the right to not say anything at all I suppose.
It still astounds me that the (current interpretation of the) law allows someone to own all the rights to a number
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
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."
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
... unless you're not one of the handful of pre-approved mods who require no justification for cutting out larger swaths of knowledge than the 1984 Ministry of Truth.
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.
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.
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.
It makes you wonder what else is going on inside Wikipedia.
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.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
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 are going to use "good faith" in determining what violates copyright law. Part of the purpose of this flag is to encode Sony's copyrighted number sequence. The flag is for this reason not in good faith. If I published a list of every possible 10 byte number in a random order the courts would not find it violating copyright law. If however, someone said look at number 78654321 on my list, and it happened to be Sony's number, the courts would find that document, not mine infringing, as it is just encoding the number. If I came up with some interesting math question to which that number was the solution, it would be infringing if displayed by itself. The question is: If someone wanted to read that number, could they use your material to find it any easier than if they didn't have it?
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.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
The key amounts to a "true name", 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".
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
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 like to see them try to register it. Good luck with that.
A better question is whether the flag is a circumvention device, and that is nearly as hard to argue.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
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
In related news, the Flag Of Japan Inc. is suing all websites that contain any red circles.
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?
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.
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.
Was this actually initiated by Sony? Or was this a deletionist getting his rocks off?
...but this is the first time I've seen rainbow flags used in this manner.
Fabulous idea :)
Get off my launchpad!
Just in case anyone's wondering what the fuss is about.
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.
No one bothered to look at the talk page? There are NO arguments for deletion. Meaning that unless things are different now at wiki, this flag isn't going anywhere. There are also some very good points about the relevant (or not) legal standing of the image. In short, wiki has no reason to delete this image, other than fear mongering. That won't actually stop them from doing it, but it's worth noting. OH, and what's to stop the /. community from reinstating the copyright flag in every wiki article on the site? Nothing. Don't mess with free speech modmins, you don't have the balls to play the game. Next thing you know you'll be drowning in Perl shaped like a camel, or ponies or something.
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.
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?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
For all the people who are complaining about the deletionist asshats download Wikipedia and provide a *fork*. Tell people it's better - spread the word.
If you care, make the effort.
I think a person should have a certain number of submissions to their credit before they can become an editor. Otherwise, we have this dynamic where men create content and deletionist women destroy content.
Alfred Pennyworth: A long time ago, I was in Burma, my friends and I were working for the local government. They were trying to buy the loyalty of tribal leaders by bribing them with precious stones. But their caravans were being raided in a forest north of Rangoon by a bandit. So we went looking for the stones. But in six months, we never found anyone who traded with him. One day I saw a child playing with a ruby the size of a tangerine. The bandit had been throwing them away.
Bruce Wayne: Then why steal them?
Alfred Pennyworth: Because he thought it was good sport. Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Uhm... so? Are you arguing that because the MPAA might get upset we shouldn't say it?
No, I'm saying the irony is in calling it 'the free speech flag' in the first place, not in having to remove it.
You could convert the notes from that song into jump coordinates and find Earth!!
The human understandable portion of your post - that part beginning ... ending: "Every application ... the number:" - is the result of a human creating it (creative expression). It enjoys protection under US copyright law.
That string of hex digits is the result of a mechanical process that is a translation - a derivative work. It differs in form, but not - if a reverse translation mechanism is available (and such is) - content. That, by US Law renders the hex string not protected by US copyright (see: http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf).
This is the problem. That bit vector ensconced in a device's firmware, even though it is the result of a mechanical process, that mechanical process is but the end point of a creative process and can enjoy copyright protection (US). A hexadecimal representation cannot.
No, I'm saying the irony is in calling it 'the free speech flag' in the first place, not in having to remove it.
Ah, OK. That's more understandable.
I'd still disagree, though. Calling it the free speach flag is apropos, because it kind of embodies the thrust of the movement (that they can't keep us from saying "09 F9"). I'm not sure that I'd call Wikipedia's act of censoring the Free Speach Flag "ironic" per se, but it comes close.
Oh yeah? Well, I claim 4, which was used no fewer than 5 times in your post.
If you don't want a big lawsuit over it, though, we could just each agree to license our respective digits to each other for free, and then the two of us can go after all those mathematicians and computer types and sue them into the ground!
Hey, what I'm doing is no different than what major software vendors do.
I am officially gone from
Worse than that... "5" is clearly a derivative work of your product.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
falls on deaf ears when people invest time and knowledge in Wikipedia only to have the content deleted.
-- $G
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.
Could have told me the key was on the Yale site. Now my PS3 doesn't work, I also think my Discman blew up, and Sony goons are at my door asking to look at my computer. They are fast, all within 5 minutes.
MS said they'd bail me out with an Xbox, but I asked does it play Blu-Ray and network to my home media server. They hung up on me. Jerks.
Selex
That place is an asshole... full of assholes...
Now that's a disturbing image. Though sadly it seems to be accurate.
I can't recall where I first ran across it, but someone once said this was all mathematical: two half-asseds make an ass-whole. And WP has gone well beyond half-assed.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
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"?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
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?
No, but seems that they can patent it.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Microsoft patented both the numbers zero and one back in 1998.
goddamit, I thought this was a gay pride demonstration! What's with all the skinny pasty-looking guys?!!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I'm forty-five years old and what is this?!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
does this count as a derivative work?
If the flag (not created by the MPAA) is under copyright, then surely the key (created by the MPAA) it was derived from would also be under copyright and all references of it should be removed from the article.
However, only the flag is being marked as a copyright violation.
This is where we are down to, with this copyright/intellectual property shit. i mean, now arrangements of colors are being owned/dominated.
But this is the essential meaning of IP - controlling how you can (not) arrange your own property (your ink and paper, your hard drive bits, the strings on your guitar, etc.) It's actually this very argument that convinced me that IP is anti-property, not pro-.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I wonder.
Suppositions,
1. You cannot own copyright to a math formula
2. A math formula could be generated that would produce the no-no number
Lets produce this formula, and publish it far and wide.
Results:
1. Sony lawyer's heads explode
2. PROFIT!!!
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?