There is no such thing as "Wikimedia Foundation UK". There is "Wikimedia UK" (officially "Wiki UK limited"). The Wikimedia Foundation is a US-based organization that runs the servers that host Wikipedia and handles the associated administrative and financial matters. Wikimedia UK is just a local users' organization, also known as a "chapter".
By writing "Wikimedia Foundation UK", the article writer seemed to imply that Roger Bamkin was a powerful person regarding the management of Wikipedia / Wikimedia sites. This is not the case.
One major difference between Wikipedia and most online media is that it cites sources (and enforces citation as a rule, though enforcement is somewhat haphazard).
It is way easier to check some information if you are given an authoritative source for it. If Wikipedia tells you that some lizard men killed JFK, but cites no source for it, or cites some not obviously reliable source (say, a political blog), then just ignore that information. If Wikipedia says that according to some report, JFK was killed by such or such person, then Wikipedia will give you a precise citation or even Web link to the report.
So, in short, you're wrong. Sorting things on Wikipedia is easy if you simply bother to look for the citation links.
True, Wikipedia often catches the lazy, or those that lack the habit of reading footnotes and bibliographies.
AFP, AP, Reuters are not fail-proof. An agency (I think it was Reuters) once (mis)understood that Wikipedia was starting a search engine. This was a canard, and the Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts Wikipedia, issued a communique about it.
Nevertheless, the news got copied everywhere, and is still occasionally presented as fact by journalists.
This shows the vulnerability of modern journalism - a lot of it is basically copied from earlier articles, and a single error in a highly-placed source (say, AFP, AP, Reuters, or major newspapers) can be copied to many places without anybody bothering to check facts.
"French law specifically prohibits the publication of any image derived from a photograph taken in a public place without the consent of the person in that image, if the person is the main or only subject in that image."
No, it does not. The actual law is very vague (as you cited) and what really matters is interpretation, which is on a case by case basis, though general guidelines may be extracted from the flow of court decisions.
Photographs of random people where they can be easily recognized (main subject etc.) => authorization needed. Photographs were random people are mixed in the background => no authorization needed. Celebrity taken when doing private things, such as shopping => authorization needed. Public person in a public meeting etc. => no authorization needed (except if used as an endorsement for a product or similar). Nude photographs where person is recognizable => no authorization needed.
It is basically about common sense: the courts consider that one should not expose the private life of people without their consent; however, they recognize the practical need of being able to shoot whole scenes even if there happen to be a few people passing, and they also of course recognize that one can freely report on a public person acting as such (making a speech etc.).
"Nobody has yet mentioned the reason expensive journals persist in an era of cheap typesetting and distribution. It's because they provide two (inter-related) things to the science community: Quality control. For the good journals, when you submit an article it is typically reviewed (anonymously) by at least three of your peers, who make comments that are forwarded to you for response. You either argue your case against the reviewers or change your paper to accommodate."
Peer review has little to do with the price of the publications. Referees are not paid by the publisher of the journal (I know this because I've refereed a bunch of papers and never got anything more than a "thank you" note.)
There are enormous price differences between peer-reviewed journals. Some first-class journals in computer science, such as the Journal of the ACM, cost about 200 a year, while some other journals cost as much as 5000. The difference is that the former are published by nonprofits (scientific or technical societies) while the latter are published by for-profit entities, who charge universities through their nose.
A solution, yet unimplemented, would be to have editorial boards read and validate articles that are published on sites such as arXiv.org
Repeat: what's important is the editorial board, not the publisher.
It is, in my humble opinion, rather ridiculous to group together Germany and China on the one hand, the US on the other hand, if only because in China there is no real "rule of law" - that is, a lot of things are subject to arbitrary decisions.
After the DMCA in the USA... After the 2001 EUCD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU_Copyright_Directi ve) in the EU... After the 2006 DADVSI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DADVSI) in France...
Re:economic model and pressures on governments
on
The Cost of the iPod
·
· Score: 1
Yep, my government is corrupt. That does not preclude the US government being corrupt too, and its lawmaking process being up for sale. I'm trying to avoid the same kind of thing happening here.
Re:economic model and pressures on governments
on
The Cost of the iPod
·
· Score: 1
My point is proved: the US press simply copied the arguments laid forth by Apple and associated industry groups. You know how it works: you put forth a press release, people copy it, and soon bingo you coined a word.
economic model and pressures on governments
on
The Cost of the iPod
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
We have all heard about Apple's outraged reaction to the so-called "iTunes law" (which really isn't an iTunes law except in Apple's propaganda, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DADVSI for more information).
Apple has an economic model that enables the company to make a lot of money from the sales of their device.
It seems that it also would prefer that law strengthens that economic model, for instance by criminalizing those who would dare make compatible players.
As a result, they have begun bullying governments around the world, with the help of the US government. (I'm surprised that a Republican administration should help Apple, but Apple probably funds both parties anyway.)
Note: the French really do not call this the "iTunes law" or the "iPod law". This is a nickname granted by incompetent or dishonest journalists in the US press, who somehow claim that the law was initially meant at targetting iPod/iTunes. It suffices to read the transcripts of the debates and the drafts to see that it wasn't.
You may notice that they have passed this law on the last day of the parliamentary session, when the news is focused on the World Cup, after trying to pass it just before the Christmas break.
The reason could be that some important people owe favors to some industry.
This so-called "iTunes law" began as a law meant to criminalize peer-to-peer file sharing as well as any circumvention of DRMs.
The so-called "iTunes" clauses were introduced as amendments, proposed by free software activists who wanted to save the legal possibility of making free software players. Apple was a side casualty.
France outlaws all animal fighting, except in places with an uninterrupted tradition. Indeed, there are a few places in Southern France close to Spain with corridas.
The French DMCA-like law (known as DADVSI) has not yet been voted. Supposedly, it will go before the Senate on Friday morning and the Assembly in the afternoon. It will probably be voted, but this is not 100% sure. Then it will face constitutional review, since a number of its clauses are considered constitutionally dubious.
This operation was, excuse me, a success. Either RMS could get an appointment with Villepin (or, more probably, a technical or political advisor of his), and he could try to add to the overall pressure on this issue. Either he could not, and then it was an excellent occasion to dump the 165,000 signatures into the gutter in front of photographers, and then to accuse Villepin of disregarding the opinion of hundreds of thousands of his fellow citizens.
Of course, this is a cheap media stunt. It took only a few dozen people to walk to Matignon (the PM's office) and, for this, they got the attention of the specialized media, Slashdot etc. No need to throw an expensive party, as some industry lobbyists have done.
In any case, contrary to what people seem to suggest, the whole anti-DADVSI operation is quite successful. (DADVSI is the name of the law, an equivalent to the DMCA.) With hardly any money, and against them enormous and powerful lobbies, they have managed to stall the legislation for 6 months, and to incite strong divisions inside the ruling majority. (Not to mention amusing statements by the president of the National Assembly, who declared that the law had been ill-prepared, and that the minister in charge of it was a zero who had put the majority members of parliament in the shit about this law...)
The real question is which one, between Airbus and Boeing, has the more dysfunctional managerial attitude. If you look at the matter, both have made disputed decisions in the past, and singling one of them for this is unbalanced.
Sorry, but this is not what the law says, at least in my understanding.
First, the police must have a valid reason to check on you. (Though in some circumstances, a valid reason can be a judicial authorization...)
Second, you do not have to carry your ID. However, if you cannot show any photo ID, the police can take you to a police station for a maximum of four hours while they run background checks.
To summarize: * In theory, you do not have to carry a photo ID. It is not an offense not to carry one. * In practice, in the event that law enforcement has a valid reason to check on you, it is much better to have a photo ID.
At least, this is what I understand from the Code of criminal procedure.
Again, premature news. What happens is that the Senate Commission for cultural affairs has proposed amendments that would significantly reduce the scope of DRM "interoperability", as well as remove some guarantees that were obtained for free software, both of which were adopted unexpectedly by the National Assembly and against the opinion of the Assembly's own commission.
Given the history of that text, one can not exclude other unexpected events. The Senators are not in any way forced to adopt the amendments proposed by their commission.
Things have already gotten pretty weird, with an opposition Senator, Michel Charasse, defending positions more or less opposed to what his fellow party members defended in the Assembly.
Thus, any final opinion on the issue is premature. And if I were Apple, I would not be gloating over victory yet: the argument that Apple was against the legislation has been used as a proof that the proposed legislation would only benefit extra-european monopolies...
Note that, formally speaking, ID cards are *not* compulsory in France, just as state (non-)driving licenses are not compulsory in the US. However, in the same way that one gets asked for a driving license fairly often in the US (for purchasing alcohol, for paying with a credit card, etc.), life is made easier in France if you have an ID card (photo ID is often required for paying merchants by personal check, for passing exams, and in case law enforcement has a valid reason to check your identity, it's much easier if you have an ID).
Slashdot Mirror
There is no such thing as "Wikimedia Foundation UK". There is "Wikimedia UK" (officially "Wiki UK limited"). The Wikimedia Foundation is a US-based organization that runs the servers that host Wikipedia and handles the associated administrative and financial matters. Wikimedia UK is just a local users' organization, also known as a "chapter".
By writing "Wikimedia Foundation UK", the article writer seemed to imply that Roger Bamkin was a powerful person regarding the management of Wikipedia / Wikimedia sites. This is not the case.
One major difference between Wikipedia and most online media is that it cites sources (and enforces citation as a rule, though enforcement is somewhat haphazard).
It is way easier to check some information if you are given an authoritative source for it. If Wikipedia tells you that some lizard men killed JFK, but cites no source for it, or cites some not obviously reliable source (say, a political blog), then just ignore that information. If Wikipedia says that according to some report, JFK was killed by such or such person, then Wikipedia will give you a precise citation or even Web link to the report.
So, in short, you're wrong. Sorting things on Wikipedia is easy if you simply bother to look for the citation links.
True, Wikipedia often catches the lazy, or those that lack the habit of reading footnotes and bibliographies.
AFP, AP, Reuters are not fail-proof. An agency (I think it was Reuters) once (mis)understood that Wikipedia was starting a search engine. This was a canard, and the Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts Wikipedia, issued a communique about it.
Nevertheless, the news got copied everywhere, and is still occasionally presented as fact by journalists.
This shows the vulnerability of modern journalism - a lot of it is basically copied from earlier articles, and a single error in a highly-placed source (say, AFP, AP, Reuters, or major newspapers) can be copied to many places without anybody bothering to check facts.
"French law specifically prohibits the publication of any image derived from a photograph taken in a public place without the consent of the person in that image, if the person is the main or only subject in that image."
No, it does not. The actual law is very vague (as you cited) and what really matters is interpretation, which is on a case by case basis, though general guidelines may be extracted from the flow of court decisions.
Photographs of random people where they can be easily recognized (main subject etc.) => authorization needed.
Photographs were random people are mixed in the background => no authorization needed.
Celebrity taken when doing private things, such as shopping => authorization needed.
Public person in a public meeting etc. => no authorization needed (except if used as an endorsement for a product or similar).
Nude photographs where person is recognizable => no authorization needed.
It is basically about common sense: the courts consider that one should not expose the private life of people without their consent; however, they recognize the practical need of being able to shoot whole scenes even if there happen to be a few people passing, and they also of course recognize that one can freely report on a public person acting as such (making a speech etc.).
"Nobody has yet mentioned the reason expensive journals persist in an era of cheap typesetting and distribution. It's because they provide two (inter-related) things to the science community: Quality control. For the good journals, when you submit an article it is typically reviewed (anonymously) by at least three of your peers, who make comments that are forwarded to you for response. You either argue your case against the reviewers or change your paper to accommodate."
e n )
Peer review has little to do with the price of the publications. Referees are not paid by the publisher of the journal (I know this because I've refereed a bunch of papers and never got anything more than a "thank you" note.)
There are enormous price differences between peer-reviewed journals. Some first-class journals in computer science, such as the Journal of the ACM, cost about 200 a year, while some other journals cost as much as 5000. The difference is that the former are published by nonprofits (scientific or technical societies) while the latter are published by for-profit entities, who charge universities through their nose.
A solution, yet unimplemented, would be to have editorial boards read and validate articles that are published on sites such as arXiv.org
Repeat: what's important is the editorial board, not the publisher.
(Shameless plug: the French research agency CNRS has a nice site for open publication: http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/index.php?langue=
Read this article to know more about how Universal Music (Vivendi group) supports agressive copyright legislations...
It is, in my humble opinion, rather ridiculous to group together Germany and China on the one hand, the US on the other hand, if only because in China there is no real "rule of law" - that is, a lot of things are subject to arbitrary decisions.
After the DMCA in the USA...i ve) in the EU...
After the 2001 EUCD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU_Copyright_Direct
After the 2006 DADVSI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DADVSI) in France...
Yep, my government is corrupt. That does not preclude the US government being corrupt too, and its lawmaking process being up for sale. I'm trying to avoid the same kind of thing happening here.
My point is proved: the US press simply copied the arguments laid forth by Apple and associated industry groups. You know how it works: you put forth a press release, people copy it, and soon bingo you coined a word.
We have all heard about Apple's outraged reaction to the so-called "iTunes law" (which really isn't an iTunes law except in Apple's propaganda, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DADVSI for more information).
Apple has an economic model that enables the company to make a lot of money from the sales of their device.
It seems that it also would prefer that law strengthens that economic model, for instance by criminalizing those who would dare make compatible players.
As a result, they have begun bullying governments around the world, with the help of the US government. (I'm surprised that a Republican administration should help Apple, but Apple probably funds both parties anyway.)
Note: the French really do not call this the "iTunes law" or the "iPod law". This is a nickname granted by incompetent or dishonest journalists in the US press, who somehow claim that the law was initially meant at targetting iPod/iTunes. It suffices to read the transcripts of the debates and the drafts to see that it wasn't.
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DADVSI
You may notice that they have passed this law on the last day of the parliamentary session, when the news is focused on the World Cup, after trying to pass it just before the Christmas break.
The reason could be that some important people owe favors to some industry.
Bullshit. The original law implements the 2001 European Copyright directive, which explicitly mandates giving legal protection to DRMs.
Given how the interoperability clauses had to be forced-fed down the collective neck of the government, I strongly doubt any link with Archos.
Just read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DADVSI
Most news sources just tell rubbish about this law.
This so-called "iTunes law" began as a law meant to criminalize peer-to-peer file sharing as well as any circumvention of DRMs.
The so-called "iTunes" clauses were introduced as amendments, proposed by free software activists who wanted to save the legal possibility of making free software players. Apple was a side casualty.
France outlaws all animal fighting, except in places with an uninterrupted tradition. Indeed, there are a few places in Southern France close to Spain with corridas.
The French DMCA-like law (known as DADVSI) has not yet been voted. Supposedly, it will go before the Senate on Friday morning and the Assembly in the afternoon. It will probably be voted, but this is not 100% sure. Then it will face constitutional review, since a number of its clauses are considered constitutionally dubious.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DADVSI
And the US government does not hesitate to put pressure on foreign governments. See for instance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DADVSI
(To be fair, the said foreign governments have their own domestic lobbies too.)
Folks...
This operation was, excuse me, a success. Either RMS could get an appointment with Villepin (or, more probably, a technical or political advisor of his), and he could try to add to the overall pressure on this issue. Either he could not, and then it was an excellent occasion to dump the 165,000 signatures into the gutter in front of photographers, and then to accuse Villepin of disregarding the opinion of hundreds of thousands of his fellow citizens.
Of course, this is a cheap media stunt. It took only a few dozen people to walk to Matignon (the PM's office) and, for this, they got the attention of the specialized media, Slashdot etc. No need to throw an expensive party, as some industry lobbyists have done.
In any case, contrary to what people seem to suggest, the whole anti-DADVSI operation is quite successful. (DADVSI is the name of the law, an equivalent to the DMCA.) With hardly any money, and against them enormous and powerful lobbies, they have managed to stall the legislation for 6 months, and to incite strong divisions inside the ruling majority. (Not to mention amusing statements by the president of the National Assembly, who declared that the law had been ill-prepared, and that the minister in charge of it was a zero who had put the majority members of parliament in the shit about this law...)
I suggest people here (most of whom don't know anything about what they discuss) should read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DADVSI
The real question is which one, between Airbus and Boeing, has the more dysfunctional managerial attitude. If you look at the matter, both have made disputed decisions in the past, and singling one of them for this is unbalanced.
Except that the A300 is not a fly-by-wire design.
Sorry, but this is not what the law says, at least in my understanding.
First, the police must have a valid reason to check on you. (Though in some circumstances, a valid reason can be a judicial authorization...)
Second, you do not have to carry your ID. However, if you cannot show any photo ID, the police can take you to a police station for a maximum of four hours while they run background checks.
To summarize:
* In theory, you do not have to carry a photo ID. It is not an offense not to carry one.
* In practice, in the event that law enforcement has a valid reason to check on you, it is much better to have a photo ID.
At least, this is what I understand from the Code of criminal procedure.
Again, premature news. What happens is that the Senate Commission for cultural affairs has proposed amendments that would significantly reduce the scope of DRM "interoperability", as well as remove some guarantees that were obtained for free software, both of which were adopted unexpectedly by the National Assembly and against the opinion of the Assembly's own commission.
Given the history of that text, one can not exclude other unexpected events. The Senators are not in any way forced to adopt the amendments proposed by their commission.
Things have already gotten pretty weird, with an opposition Senator, Michel Charasse, defending positions more or less opposed to what his fellow party members defended in the Assembly.
Thus, any final opinion on the issue is premature. And if I were Apple, I would not be gloating over victory yet: the argument that Apple was against the legislation has been used as a proof that the proposed legislation would only benefit extra-european monopolies...
Note that, formally speaking, ID cards are *not* compulsory in France, just as state (non-)driving licenses are not compulsory in the US. However, in the same way that one gets asked for a driving license fairly often in the US (for purchasing alcohol, for paying with a credit card, etc.), life is made easier in France if you have an ID card (photo ID is often required for paying merchants by personal check, for passing exams, and in case law enforcement has a valid reason to check your identity, it's much easier if you have an ID).