You can't honestly be serious, Doc. We don't write an article about
"that company that starts with an M and made the popular operating
system that starts with a W", we write about Microsoft and Windows.
When we write about The Pirate Bay, we don't say "Well, there's this
one website out there that distributes pirated software", we identify
and name them, despite the highly-questionable legality of what
they're doing. When we write about things, we identify and mention
them. Now, of course, as always, we must require reliable sourcing. If
no reliable sources publish the actual string, we can't verify it, so
we can't publish it. But if they do, we mirror that, by identifying
and naming it. Even -if- some people are acting badly in trying to
force the issue, that's the way we do it with anything, and that's the
way we should do it here.
On 5/2/07, doc <doc.wikipedia(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:
Todd Allen wrote:
Well, my personal feelings on copyright,
especially as involves
personal not-for-profit copying, involve something to the effect of
"Long live DVD Jon, Linus Torvalds, and Richard Stallman, and limit
the damn term to 5 years, no one else profits from their work for life
plus 70!" Just to make sure that's out in the open.
That being said. Wikipedia has a nice DMCA compliance notice on the
page. -If-, and only if, Wikipedia gets a DMCA notice regarding that
string, we could temporarily take it down (in a legitimate OFFICE
action), while the community is notified what's going on and asked
what to do. If so, they post it on Chilling Effects, like everyone
else does, and we talk about the issue. And we watch whoever sent it
get crucified all over the place. And indeed, once that article hits
Slashdot and Digg and X million blogs, one might just find that a lot
of "anonymous people" are willing to throw in a few bucks for legal
expenses, on fighting that one.
But in the meantime, if we can reliably source it (and if we can't
today, we can tomorrow!), publish the damn string. It's a -number-.
Yes, we should generally go along with the legal system. But not those
who are hyperventilating that there is any -realistic- possibility
that a number, a string of digits, can be forbidden by law.
Seraphimblade
Sorry, I thought we were an encyclopedia, not a free-speech campaign group?
Exactly how does publishing the string, as opposed to writing an article
about it, further our declared aims?
Doc
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Freedom is the right to know that 2+2=4. From this all else follows.