I noticed today that the Internets civil war or whatever that is underway for this has spread to Wikipedia, to the point it's now on DRV:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2007_May_2#09_9_1...
Zscout says here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Zscout370#HD_DVD_Key
"Regardless if it is popular or not, we cannot host the key on here and the Foundation has asked us to remove it on sight. User:Zscout370http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zscout370 *(Return Fire)* 03:57, 2 May 2007 (UTC)"
Did the WMF take that official stance? Where, if I missed it? The specific number/value I don't believe can be even copyrighted in the United States.
Keep in mind that the hex/number itself is now notable.
-- Regards, Joe http://www.joeszilagyi.com
On 02/05/07, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
Did the WMF take that official stance? Where, if I missed it?
As I posted earlier, oversight-l asked Cary Bass about this and he said deletion would do for now.
The specific number/value I don't believe can be even copyrighted in the United States.
The DMCA takedown notices are under the circumvention mechanism provision, not under the copyright violation provision.
Keep in mind that the hex/number itself is now notable.
"Notable" is not "this week's Internet meme." As I said in my previous message, give it a month and we'll see.
(I'm pretty sure it will - this will make [[Illegal prime]] look minor.)
- d.
On 5/2/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Did the WMF take that official stance? Where, if I missed it?
As I posted earlier, oversight-l asked Cary Bass about this and he said deletion would do for now.
Ah, I missed that. Someone way want to correct any misunderstandings then that the Foundation hasn't mandated it's removal on that level, then (so no one thinks they have OFFICE authority or whatever. Just so there are no misunderstandings about official WMF stances and whatnot.
"Notable" is not "this week's Internet meme." As I said in my previous
message, give it a month and we'll see.
(I'm pretty sure it will - this will make [[Illegal prime]] look minor.)
Yeah, I think so too. The moment they began DMCAing it, it was bound to get out of control. I almost think Digg did their crazed assault on the numbers last night as some weird reverse-psychology trolling of the MPAA et al, to *get* people to post about the numbers as fervently and as widely as possible.
On 5/2/07, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
I noticed today that the Internets civil war or whatever that is underway for this has spread to Wikipedia, to the point it's now on DRV:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2007_May_2#09_9_1...
Zscout says here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Zscout370#HD_DVD_Key
"Regardless if it is popular or not, we cannot host the key on here and the Foundation has asked us to remove it on sight. User:Zscout370http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zscout370 *(Return Fire)* 03:57, 2 May 2007 (UTC)"
Did the WMF take that official stance? Where, if I missed it? The specific number/value I don't believe can be even copyrighted in the United States.
Keep in mind that the hex/number itself is now notable.
That is not true. I was in IRC when Zscout370 uttered it and immediately pointed out that it was the case.
Rather, there was an overwhelming consensus of folks in the IRC en: admins channel that excising that hex string was the right thing to do.
That is, allow no article by the name, no mention in obvious articles (HD-DVD, encryption, etc), no users by that name, no categories by that name, no links by that name, no base 10 variants of that name, etc. Believe me, the Digg activists tried any and all of those tactics.
And even though there is some quibbling at the DRV, the admins have pretty much been on the same page (no pun intended) on this issue. It's not a matter of notability, copyvio, or CSD. It's a matter of making sure Wikipedia content does not run afoul of the DMCA re: circumvention technology.
I'm glad that by and large, reason won out during the cyber-revolt and the community held its ground.
-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
On 02/05/07, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
Keep in mind that the hex/number itself is now notable.
That is not true. I was in IRC when Zscout370 uttered it and immediately pointed out that it was the case.
Of course, it is notable as "the HD DVD key", not as a string of hex digits - there is nothing *numerically* significant about it. We could quite legitimately (if somewhat clumsily) write about it and the giant kerfuffle without ever actually quoting the number, or indeed ever *needing* to. Consider the way newspapers cover high-profile defamation lawsuits without ever quoting the slander - the important story is that something was said and how it was reacted to, not the exact wording of what was actually said...
On 5/2/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/05/07, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
Keep in mind that the hex/number itself is now notable.
That is not true. I was in IRC when Zscout370 uttered it and immediately pointed out that it was the case.
Of course, it is notable as "the HD DVD key", not as a string of hex digits - there is nothing *numerically* significant about it. We could quite legitimately (if somewhat clumsily) write about it and the giant kerfuffle without ever actually quoting the number, or indeed ever *needing* to. Consider the way newspapers cover high-profile defamation lawsuits without ever quoting the slander - the important story is that something was said and how it was reacted to, not the exact wording of what was actually said...
If we need some historical context, Wikipedia handled the [[Katelyn Faber]] (Kobe's accuser) issue quite well in keeping her name out of Wikipedia until it was made public.
-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
The question is, can we be required to prevent it from being posted to Wikipedia, including in any disguised form, old history revisions, etc? If so, are we supposed to read all revisions before making them live? That would basically stop Wikipedia from improving at all.
Nathan
On 02/05/07, Nathan Russell windrunner@gmail.com wrote:
The question is, can we be required to prevent it from being posted to Wikipedia, including in any disguised form, old history revisions, etc? If so, are we supposed to read all revisions before making them live? That would basically stop Wikipedia from improving at all.
We haven't even been sent a DMCA notice, as far as I know.
The best, and indeed only IMO, reason to remove it is that we're an encyclopedia, not a newspaper, Slashdot or a public graffiti wall.
- d.
On 02/05/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The best, and indeed only IMO, reason to remove it is that we're an encyclopedia, not a newspaper, Slashdot or a public graffiti wall.
- d.
I presume there's no reason all the same not to mention it in the HD-DVD article?
Zoney
On 02/05/07, Zoney zoney.ie@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/05/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The best, and indeed only IMO, reason to remove it is that we're an encyclopedia, not a newspaper, Slashdot or a public graffiti wall.
I presume there's no reason all the same not to mention it in the HD-DVD article?
I personally would work around putting it in.
Mind you, [[Illegal prime]] lists the allegedly illegal prime. Wanna put it in in decimal? Or better yet, a link to a listing of it.
- d.
On 02/05/07, Zoney zoney.ie@gmail.com wrote:
The best, and indeed only IMO, reason to remove it is that we're an encyclopedia, not a newspaper, Slashdot or a public graffiti wall.
I presume there's no reason all the same not to mention it in the HD-DVD article?
As explained earlier, it is perfectly easy to write an informative and useful article about the topic without ever feeling the need to quote the string in question.
On 5/2/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/05/07, Zoney zoney.ie@gmail.com wrote:
The best, and indeed only IMO, reason to remove it is that we're an encyclopedia, not a newspaper, Slashdot or a public graffiti wall.
I presume there's no reason all the same not to mention it in the HD-DVD article?
As explained earlier, it is perfectly easy to write an informative and useful article about the topic without ever feeling the need to quote the string in question.
And it's also perfectly easy to write an informative and useful article about the topic which does quote the string in question. So unless the foundation takes a position that we can't mention the string, I think we should.
Now, the string is apparently listed in the spam blacklist. However, it isn't listed on "http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Spam_blacklist". I assumed this was due to one of the foundation employees special-casing it, but I'm not sure. Does anyone know how this works?
Anthony
On 02/05/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
And it's also perfectly easy to write an informative and useful article about the topic which does quote the string in question. So unless the foundation takes a position that we can't mention the string, I think we should.
Definitely. But I think we should wait a month, when the massive distributed spam attack has calmed the fuck down.
Now, the string is apparently listed in the spam blacklist. However, it isn't listed on "http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Spam_blacklist". I assumed this was due to one of the foundation employees special-casing it, but I'm not sure. Does anyone know how this works?
It was a dev (obviously ab)using their power to do the obviously right thing in the face of a massive distributed spam attack.
- d.
On 5/2/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/05/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
And it's also perfectly easy to write an informative and useful article about the topic which does quote the string in question. So unless the foundation takes a position that we can't mention the string, I think we should.
Definitely. But I think we should wait a month, when the massive distributed spam attack has calmed the fuck down.
Wouldn't including the information in the encyclopedia obviate the need for the spam attack in the first place? It's not a rhetorical question, as I'm unfamiliar with all the details of the spam attack.
Anthony
On 02/05/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 5/2/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/05/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
And it's also perfectly easy to write an informative and useful article about the topic which does quote the string in question. So unless the foundation takes a position that we can't mention the string, I think we should.
Definitely. But I think we should wait a month, when the massive distributed spam attack has calmed the fuck down.
Wouldn't including the information in the encyclopedia obviate the need for the spam attack in the first place? It's not a rhetorical question, as I'm unfamiliar with all the details of the spam attack.
Lots of fuckwits deciding FIGHT THE POWER!!!! and cut'n'pasting The Number into every input box on the damn Web.
Fuck that. That's not writing an encyclopedia. That's distributed spamming. The more we can do to render this futile, the better.
- d.
On 5/2/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/05/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 5/2/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/05/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
And it's also perfectly easy to write an informative and useful article about the topic which does quote the string in question. So unless the foundation takes a position that we can't mention the string, I think we should.
Definitely. But I think we should wait a month, when the massive distributed spam attack has calmed the fuck down.
Wouldn't including the information in the encyclopedia obviate the need for the spam attack in the first place? It's not a rhetorical question, as I'm unfamiliar with all the details of the spam attack.
Lots of fuckwits deciding FIGHT THE POWER!!!! and cut'n'pasting The Number into every input box on the damn Web.
Fuck that. That's not writing an encyclopedia. That's distributed spamming. The more we can do to render this futile, the better.
Well, I guess I see your point. I don't think we should let spammers dictate the content of our articles for any amount of time (*), but a month isn't all that long in the grand scheme of things.
Anthony
(*) And that's the point I'm bringing up to my question about what would we do if spammers decided to add "George Bush" to every single page. I'm not saying I'm going to do it, although I suppose I would support others doing it if it gets them to rethink this spam blacklist policy.
On 02/05/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
Well, I guess I see your point. I don't think we should let spammers dictate the content of our articles for any amount of time (*), but a month isn't all that long in the grand scheme of things.
Yeah. The "wait" solution is bolstered by its clear effectiveness on [[Brian Peppers]] - after a year, it was obvious "oh, he's not really notable after all." Just some poor bugger with a weird condition.
(*) And that's the point I'm bringing up to my question about what would we do if spammers decided to add "George Bush" to every single page. I'm not saying I'm going to do it, although I suppose I would support others doing it if it gets them to rethink this spam blacklist policy.
It's an immediate developer response to a distributed spam attack. I still don't see what's intrinsically wrong with having done this in the situation.
(I'd be putting the number all over the blog if it wasn't hosted in the cursed nation of America by friends.)
- d.
On 5/2/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/05/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
Well, I guess I see your point. I don't think we should let spammers dictate the content of our articles for any amount of time (*), but a month isn't all that long in the grand scheme of things.
Yeah. The "wait" solution is bolstered by its clear effectiveness on [[Brian Peppers]] - after a year, it was obvious "oh, he's not really notable after all." Just some poor bugger with a weird condition.
Actually [[Brian Peppers]] is a good example of the problem with the "wait" solution. There wasn't a consensus to delete the article in the first place, then Jimbo deleted it, then a year later there still wasn't consensus to delete the article (*), but since the status quo had changed, there didn't need to be consensus to delete, but consensus to restore.
Another example of the failure of the "wait" solution is the whole Article Creation Experiment. Last I heard even Jimmy wasn't convinced that it was the right decision, but because it is now the status quo, no one is willing to revert back to the old status quo.
(*) There are still more people searching for info on Brian Peppers than Jimmy Wales [http://www.google.com/trends?q=brian+peppers%2Cjimmy+wales]
(*) And that's the point I'm bringing up to my question about what would we do if spammers decided to add "George Bush" to every single page. I'm not saying I'm going to do it, although I suppose I would support others doing it if it gets them to rethink this spam blacklist policy.
It's an immediate developer response to a distributed spam attack. I still don't see what's intrinsically wrong with having done this in the situation.
If it's just a short-term hack, then we should be coming up with a longer-term solution now. How about turning the ban off a handful of articles, for instance?
Anthony
David Gerard wrote:
Yeah. The "wait" solution is bolstered by its clear effectiveness on [[Brian Peppers]] - after a year, it was obvious "oh, he's not really notable after all." Just some poor bugger with a weird condition.
Well, we never really got to come to a conclusion on that. And the conclusion we came to was pathetically wrong, so it's a poor example across the board.
Notability isn't temporary, whether it's some unfortunate web meme or a large-scale act of civil disobedience. Yes, probably, if we had an article on the situation and on the number, it would decrease it better than the typical overreaction we tend to have.
-Jeff
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
On 5/2/07, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
Yeah. The "wait" solution is bolstered by its clear effectiveness on [[Brian Peppers]] - after a year, it was obvious "oh, he's not really notable after all." Just some poor bugger with a weird condition.
Well, we never really got to come to a conclusion on that. And the conclusion we came to was pathetically wrong, so it's a poor example across the board.
Notability isn't temporary, whether it's some unfortunate web meme or a large-scale act of civil disobedience. Yes, probably, if we had an article on the situation and on the number, it would decrease it better than the typical overreaction we tend to have.
-Jeff
-- If you can read this, I'm not at home.
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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
On 5/3/07, doc doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com wrote:
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?
If you upload a useful free image to wikipedia you can put the string in the image metadata. On balance I'm not sure that would be a good idea though.
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@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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On 5/3/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
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.
Not true. For example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Crystal_Gail_...
On Thu, 3 May 2007, geni wrote:
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.
Not true. For example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Crystal_Gail_...
1) That involved an actual OFFICE action. I would object to deleting the number much less if it was an office action (probably not at all, depending on the details). 2) If you look at the article's talk page itself, you'll see that there was a ridiculous amount of Wikilawyering over not printing her name by someone who kept claiming that the sources were unreliable or that finding her name is OR, but who seemed to just not want it included and was straining for excuses.
On 03/05/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
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.
Tell me this, please. Is there *anyone* in the world who would walk up to a friend and say - hey did you hear the news about [string of hex digits]? We can write an article which is perfectly explanatory, covers this whole fracas, and doesn't ever mention the actual value of the key; indeed, it would look and sound perfectly natural unless you were explicitly looking for the value.
(Consider a brief thought experiment: a long numerical string is unwieldy and clumsy; it breaks the flow of text. Any article on it would rapidly become one mention of the number and "the key" or "the value" or "n" elsewhere in the text, and the article would be titled something accordingly - here, "HD DVD key" or the like, but I don't know what for our thought experiment. The number itself has no intrinsic numerical significance*, so there wouldn't be a section devoted to discussing it as a number. Leave this article to be edited for a month; someone quietly takes the value out, along with all the other usual alterations. I'm really not sure you'd even notice when you came back to look at it again...)
Actually, yes, I know quite a few people who routinely speak of (and in) hex digits and the like. Now, of course, they all tend to be programmers. But how many people do you think, if it happened, would wake up, call their friend, and say "WOW! Did you hear they discovered a new allotrope of carbon called blabitychasomethingblehwhatsit?" I can't imagine very few people would use such a name, if our fictional allotrope existed. (I strongly doubt most people could tell you what a fullerene is either, and that's a very real one.) We quite often use technical and scientific terminology that very few people would use in day-to-day conversation. In this case, the number has a great significance. As to "breaking text", yes, we should only write it -once-. But we shouldn't fail to write it that once, because we're scared that the Big Bad Lawyers will Come And Get Us. The worst they'll do is send a DMCA notice, and we'd have to take it down temporarily. They likely won't even do that.
On 5/2/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 03/05/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
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.
Tell me this, please. Is there *anyone* in the world who would walk up to a friend and say - hey did you hear the news about [string of hex digits]? We can write an article which is perfectly explanatory, covers this whole fracas, and doesn't ever mention the actual value of the key; indeed, it would look and sound perfectly natural unless you were explicitly looking for the value.
(Consider a brief thought experiment: a long numerical string is unwieldy and clumsy; it breaks the flow of text. Any article on it would rapidly become one mention of the number and "the key" or "the value" or "n" elsewhere in the text, and the article would be titled something accordingly - here, "HD DVD key" or the like, but I don't know what for our thought experiment. The number itself has no intrinsic numerical significance*, so there wouldn't be a section devoted to discussing it as a number. Leave this article to be edited for a month; someone quietly takes the value out, along with all the other usual alterations. I'm really not sure you'd even notice when you came back to look at it again...)
--
- Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
- though we all remember the "proof all numbers are interesting", I'm sure!
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On 03/05/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
Tell me this, please. Is there *anyone* in the world who would walk up to a friend and say - hey did you hear the news about [string of hex digits]?
This is precisely why the analogous DVD key article is called [[Illegal prime]].
- d.
I agree, we should probably title the article "HD-DVD encryption" "HD-DVD decryption discovery", or something of the like. (Though the number should be a redirect, it's not inconceivable someone would see it and paste it into the search box.) But I don't think anyone, with a straight (virtual) face, can say that this is not a notable event which will not have a place in the encyclopedia. I'm all for "we're not a newspaper". But we certainly had articles on the Virginia Tech massacre shortly after it occurred, because it was patently obvious that it was a notable event that was most certainly going to call for an article. The same applies here. Now, must we wait on, and work from, reliable sources which report on it? Absolutely, and Slashdot and Digg don't fit that bill. But when they do, we ought to have the article, and it ought to include information relevant to the situation-including the number.
On 5/2/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 03/05/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
Tell me this, please. Is there *anyone* in the world who would walk up to a friend and say - hey did you hear the news about [string of hex digits]?
This is precisely why the analogous DVD key article is called [[Illegal prime]].
- d.
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On Thu, 3 May 2007, David Gerard wrote:
Tell me this, please. Is there *anyone* in the world who would walk up to a friend and say - hey did you hear the news about [string of hex digits]?
This is precisely why the analogous DVD key article is called [[Illegal prime]].
But that article does contain the illegal numbers. It doesn't contain them as a title, but neither does it avoid them completely.
Moreover, the numbers in that article are large enough that nobody would paste them in a search box, unlike the HD-DVD number. And unlike the HD-DVD number, those numbers are programs, not keys; a program can be written in thousands of different ways, so it's unlikely a user would want any specific one.
David Gerard wrote:
On 03/05/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
Tell me this, please. Is there *anyone* in the world who would walk up to a friend and say - hey did you hear the news about [string of hex digits]?
This is precisely why the analogous DVD key article is called [[Illegal prime]].
And how does one go about distinguishing it from [[Illegal ;-) prime]]?
Ec
On Thu, 3 May 2007, Andrew Gray wrote:
Tell me this, please. Is there *anyone* in the world who would walk up to a friend and say - hey did you hear the news about [string of hex digits]? We can write an article which is perfectly explanatory, covers this whole fracas, and doesn't ever mention the actual value of the key; indeed, it would look and sound perfectly natural unless you were explicitly looking for the value.
I've never gone up to a friend and told him that the aphelion of Mars is 154,863,553 miles. If I had reason to talk about astronomy, I might tell friends that the aphelion is about 150 million, but I certainly would not use all the digits that Wikipedia gives.
This is not a reason to change the Wikipedia entry to read "about 150 million miles". The fact that nobody's going to use all the digits in casual conversation (and probably not much at all) is no reason not to include them.
Your point *might* apply to avoiding the number in an article title (though I would argue that it doesn't because someone could and probably would cut and paste the number into a search box). But it doesn't apply to not using the number at all.
On 5/3/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
Tell me this, please. Is there *anyone* in the world who would walk up to a friend and say - hey did you hear the news about [string of hex digits]?
Ahem. Existence proof follows:
Just 20 hours or so ago, I did precisely this; after having gone to the trouble to create a mnemnonic with pseudo-occult undertones, to ease memorisation.
Now; this only provides a counter-example to the precise wording of your stipulation. It proves that *someone* (me) _would_ do so. In the actual case I did *not* go through it, because my friends interrupted me in the process, wanting to first know what the number was, and hearing that it was "illegal information" we had a full and frank discussion about the morality (or otherwise) of merely speaking the number outloud in a bar. So it does not precisely logically speaking prove that someone *has* done so.
Note, by the way, that these folks I was meeting with at the time were specifically people with a strong interest in all video formats (a regular meeting of scifi/horror movie buffs) and who do infact swap such and lend between each other (won't stipulate whether anyone of them privately circumvents any or all copy protection or otherwise engages in illegal copying).
On the larger issue though (as the above is largely beside the point from wikipedian purposes) I think we can easily have our cake and eat it too. Let's not be at the forefront, but not laggards either. A family friend once gave his opinion about how to best get along with ones army troop; never be first at anything, and never be last either. There is no need for us to blaze the trail on this particular issue or any like it, but we can and should confidently saunter forward on it, once the elephants have passed through and trampled a nice solid path, clearing the bush in their wake.
It is nearly inevitable that this is going to be a case where all MPAA's horses won't be able to put humpty dumpty back together again, and after it becomes definitively obvious that is the case of affairs, and the number indeed has spread far, wide and into authoritative information outlets, we can safely go with the de facto non-enforcement of what rights (or not, as the case may in the de jure sense have been) MPAA might have had to prevent disclosure.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
On 5/3/07, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
It is nearly inevitable that this is going to be a case where all MPAA's horses won't be able to put humpty dumpty back together again, and after it becomes definitively obvious that is the case of affairs, and the number indeed has spread far, wide and into authoritative information outlets, we can safely go with the de facto non-enforcement of what rights (or not, as the case may in the de jure sense have been) MPAA might have had to prevent disclosure.
Except the MPAA are going to have to think about the future. There are other such numbers that they do not wish to become public. If they think they can win such lawsuits sueing say the 10 highest profile distrubuters would be a fairly logical activity.
On 5/3/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/3/07, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
It is nearly inevitable that this is going to be a case where all MPAA's horses won't be able to put humpty dumpty back together again, and after it becomes definitively obvious that is the case of affairs, and the number indeed has spread far, wide and into authoritative information outlets, we can safely go with the de facto non-enforcement of what rights (or not, as the case may in the de jure sense have been) MPAA might have had to prevent disclosure.
Except the MPAA are going to have to think about the future. There are other such numbers that they do not wish to become public. If they think they can win such lawsuits sueing say the 10 highest profile distrubuters would be a fairly logical activity.
-- geni
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Or, they might realize that such an action would just encourage people to crack the rest of the keys, and make damn sure they get spread quickly again. Now, of course, I'm not generally one to give the MPAA much credit for such common sense, and treating them like a potentially dangerous lunatic does make a bit of sense here. So, let's see what everyone does. If they start suing Wired, or Digg, or anyone else, we should probably err on the side of caution for a bit.
However, having a quick look, the NYT blog even has links to the Youtube video of it, as well as to Digg, which at the time they wrote it has roughly eleventy thousand mentions. So my read on it is, if the NYT and all the rest aren't too worried, we don't have much to worry about either. The number's out there, and there's not a snowball's chance that any lawsuit or anything else can change that.
On 5/3/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Or, they might realize that such an action would just encourage people to crack the rest of the keys,
Doubtful. Going by the time it took to find one. And there is the slightly different Blu-ray system
and make damn sure they get spread quickly again.
How? If every large information carrier knows they will get sued if they carry the code they will not do so in future which will make spreading it much harder. At the moment the psude brave can ah "stick it to the man" with no aparent fear. Win half a dozen court cases against those spreading it and things will change. Websites like dig would not fold to their userbase because they would know that doing so would likely result in them ceaseing to exist.
Now, of course, I'm not generally one to give the MPAA much credit for such common sense, and treating them like a potentially dangerous lunatic does make a bit of sense here. So, let's see what everyone does. If they start suing Wired, or Digg, or anyone else, we should probably err on the side of caution for a bit.
I doubt they have had time to put lawsuits together yet.
However, having a quick look, the NYT blog even has links to the Youtube video of it, as well as to Digg, which at the time they wrote it has roughly eleventy thousand mentions. So my read on it is, if the NYT and all the rest aren't too worried, we don't have much to worry about either. The number's out there, and there's not a snowball's chance that any lawsuit or anything else can change that.
No but there are other numbers. If the MPAA doesn't act then people will not fear publishing those either.
On 03/05/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/3/07, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
It is nearly inevitable that this is going to be a case where all MPAA's horses won't be able to put humpty dumpty back together again, and after it becomes definitively obvious that is the case of affairs, and the number indeed has spread far, wide and into authoritative information outlets, we can safely go with the de facto non-enforcement of what rights (or not, as the case may in the de jure sense have been) MPAA might have had to prevent disclosure.
Except the MPAA are going to have to think about the future. There are other such numbers that they do not wish to become public. If they think they can win such lawsuits sueing say the 10 highest profile distrubuters would be a fairly logical activity.
I note we haven't even had a takedown notice yet.
Note also that Wikipedia is a really bad site to sue when the article is academically entirely defensible. Not even the Scientologists, famed for their chutzpah, have tried. We would have *incredible* numbers of friends.
I really doubt we're in danger, and if they were to try they'd be utterly, utterly fucked. The skies would turn black with fully armed combat ninja pro bono First Amendment lawyers.
- d.
On 5/3/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I note we haven't even had a takedown notice yet.
To send a takedown notice the MPAA would have to find a case where the number is up (it is but not too easy to find)
Note also that Wikipedia is a really bad site to sue when the article is academically entirely defensible. Not even the Scientologists, famed for their chutzpah, have tried.
Scientology largely gave up on those kind of lawsuits before wikipedia came along.
We would have *incredible* numbers of friends.
I don't know of any court system where number of friends is a significant factor in the final judgement.
I really doubt we're in danger, and if they were to try they'd be utterly, utterly fucked. The skies would turn black with fully armed combat ninja pro bono First Amendment lawyers.
So? Other forms of IP have not been found to break the 1st amendment. So far everything I've seen from actual lawyers suggests that this form doesn't either.
On 5/3/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/3/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
We would have *incredible* numbers of friends.
I don't know of any court system where number of friends is a significant factor in the final judgement.
In legal speak they call them "amici", and they most likely can make a difference.
I really doubt we're in danger, and if they were to try they'd be utterly, utterly fucked. The skies would turn black with fully armed combat ninja pro bono First Amendment lawyers.
So? Other forms of IP have not been found to break the 1st amendment.
All forms of "IP" are limited in ways which make them more consistent with the 1st amendment. For instance, with copyright infringement law, there is fair use.
So far everything I've seen from actual lawyers suggests that this form doesn't either.
Have you seen anything from lawyers working with the EFF or the ACLU? Have you read anything by "actual lawyers" like Lawrence Lessig, Yochai Benkler, Keith Aoki, Ann Bartow, Paul Schiff Berman, Stuart Biegel, Thomas F. Blackwell, James Boyle, Dan L. Burk, Julie E. Cohen, Thomas F. Cotter, Rod Dixon, Eric B. Easton, Michael M. Epstein, Christine Haight Farley, Susanna Frederick Fischer, William W. Fisher III, A. Michael Froomkin, Laura N. Gasaway, Llewellyn Joseph Gibbons, Laurence R. Helfer, Peter Jaszi, Dennis S. Karjala, Raymond Shih Ray Ku, Mary LaFrance, Michael Landau, David Lange, Mark A. Lemley, Joseph P. Liu, Lydia Pallas Loren, Michael J. Madison, Charles R. McManis, Michael J. Meurer, Eben Moglen, Craig Allen Nard, Ruth Gana Okediji, L. Ray Patterson, Mark R. Patterson, Malla Pollack, David G. Post, Margaret Jane Radin, J.H. Reichman, David A. Rice, Michael L. Rustad, David E. Sorkin, John R. Thomas, Sarah K. Wiant, or Jonathan L. Zittrain? Need I name more?
Anthony
On 5/3/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
All forms of "IP" are limited in ways which make them more consistent with the 1st amendment. For instance, with copyright infringement law, there is fair use.
Going by how long the US got by without it that doesn't appear to be a constitutional requirment as such.
Aditionaly it appears that the 1st amendment does not protect the disribution of child porn so it would appear there are limits.
On the other hand the US gov never tried to inforce the born secret laws so that kind of law may be constitutional imposible. We don't know.
Have you seen anything from lawyers working with the EFF or the ACLU?
Nope have you?
On 5/3/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/3/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
All forms of "IP" are limited in ways which make them more consistent with the 1st amendment. For instance, with copyright infringement law, there is fair use.
Going by how long the US got by without it that doesn't appear to be a constitutional requirment as such.
How long did the US get by without it? You do realize that fair use was created by the courts *long* before it was encoded into the statutes.
Aditionaly it appears that the 1st amendment does not protect the disribution of child porn so it would appear there are limits.
Of course there are limits.
On the other hand the US gov never tried to inforce the born secret laws so that kind of law may be constitutional imposible. We don't know.
Have you seen anything from lawyers working with the EFF or the ACLU?
Nope have you?
Yes, I have.
Anthony
Lack thereof? Really, they wouldn't get too far going after Wikipedia or anyone else. The last time I checked, there are a lot of servers located outside the US. They can send anyone who runs one of those all the DMCA notices they like, it would be good for a laugh.
On 5/3/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/3/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
Yes, I have.
Link? Quotation? Court fillings?
geni
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On 5/3/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Lack thereof? Really, they wouldn't get too far going after Wikipedia or anyone else.
The Felton case comes to mind. The RIAA threatened Felton with a DMCA lawsuit for publishing an academic paper on DVD encryption. Felton came back and sued for a declaratory judgment that the DMCA is unconstitutional on its face. The RIAA quickly backed down, and successfully argued to the courts that what Felton was doing wasn't even covered by the DMCA and they had no intention at all of suing him.
Anthony
On 5/3/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
The Felton case comes to mind. The RIAA threatened Felton with a DMCA lawsuit for publishing an academic paper on DVD encryption.
Err, not DVD encryption, it was some sort of CD CPMS.
Anthony
On 5/3/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 5/3/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
The Felton case comes to mind. The RIAA threatened Felton with a DMCA lawsuit for publishing an academic paper on DVD encryption.
Err, not DVD encryption, it was some sort of CD CPMS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Felten
It was the digital watermarks.
On 5/3/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Lack thereof? Really, they wouldn't get too far going after Wikipedia or anyone else. The last time I checked, there are a lot of servers located outside the US. They can send anyone who runs one of those all the DMCA notices they like, it would be good for a laugh.
See the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty. And the Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society.
Neither have been full implemented yet but trying to find jurisdictions where such laws do not apply is simply prolonging defeat.
On 5/3/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/3/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
Yes, I have.
Link? Quotation? Court fillings?
You want a link that a lawyer has made the claim that IP law is covered by the first amendment? If I were Jimbo, I'd say you were trolling. Of course, being that I'm not Jimbo, I'll assume good faith and that you honestly aren't aware of the boatloads of information on this.
http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/MPAA_DVD_cases/?f=20010126_ny_eff_pressrel.html http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DMCA/Gallery/index.html http://www.law.duke.edu/shell/cite.pl?66+Law+&+Contemp.+Probs.+173+(Wint...)
The concept that copyright law is exempt from the first amendment was also explicitly rejected by dicta in the recent Eldred Supreme Court case, but I don't have a quote from that at the moment.
Anthony
On 5/3/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 5/3/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote: You want a link that a lawyer has made the claim that IP law is covered by the first amendment?
No I want to see comments from the lawyers you listed on the issue we are dealing with.
So far all we appear to have is "Chris Sprigman, an associate professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said that under the digital copyright act, propagating even parts of techniques intended to circumvent copyright was illegal."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/03/technology/03code.html
Which is technicaly true but unhelpful.
On 5/3/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/3/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 5/3/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote: You want a link that a lawyer has made the claim that IP law is covered by the first amendment?
No I want to see comments from the lawyers you listed on the issue we are dealing with.
You're going to have to elaborate on what that issue is, then.
On 5/3/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
You're going to have to elaborate on what that issue is, then.
Is it legal under US law to publish a HD-DVD decryption code? (the answer to that is probably sometimes) Is it legal under US law to publish a HD-DVD decryption code in the context of a wikipedia article about the subject? Is it legal under US law to publish a HD-DVD decryption code in the context of an unrelated wikipedia article? (ok we don't need to know that one but I've vaguely curious as to whether the answer is "yes as long as you manage to sell a commercially significant number of copies of the article").
On 5/4/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 5/3/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/3/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 5/3/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote: You want a link that a lawyer has made the claim that IP law is covered by the first amendment?
No I want to see comments from the lawyers you listed on the issue we are dealing with.
You're going to have to elaborate on what that issue is, then.
Folks, this might be helpful. It's a backgrounder, and not a prescription for what to do. But it does reinforce that the reaction from en: admins was reasonable and likely the right thing to do.
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005229.php
-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
On 5/3/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/3/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
All forms of "IP" are limited in ways which make them more consistent with the 1st amendment. For instance, with copyright infringement law, there is fair use.
Aditionaly it appears that the 1st amendment does not protect the disribution of child porn so it would appear there are limits.
You might wish to look at [[Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition]]. Child porn is protected free speech so long as no actual children were involved in making it.
On 5/4/07, Mark Wagner carnildo@gmail.com wrote:
You might wish to look at [[Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition]]. Child porn is protected free speech so long as no actual children were involved in making it.
I know of that case (it is of interest since it is a clear difference between US and UK law in the area of free speach). Argument of definitions. If I call something child porn I mean children were involved. Otherwise I would probably call it something like lolicon.
On Thu, 3 May 2007, doc wrote:
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?
Publishing the string would be part of writing an article. It's true that few people may look up the article in order to get the string, but that's true of many facts in many articles.
Can we write the article without publishing the string? Sure. So why do we have to do it, and potentially expose ourselves to liability? If there's a way to do it, with no loss of academic integrity, why the heck wouldn't we?
Philippe ----- Original Message ----- From: Ken Arromdee To: English Wikipedia Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2007 8:37 PM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] HD DVD key mess - OFFICE/Foundation?
On Thu, 3 May 2007, doc wrote:
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?
Publishing the string would be part of writing an article. It's true that few people may look up the article in order to get the string, but that's true of many facts in many articles.
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On 03/05/07, Philippe Beaudette philippebeaudette@gmail.com wrote:
Can we write the article without publishing the string? Sure. So why do we have to do it, and potentially expose ourselves to liability? If there's a way to do it, with no loss of academic integrity, why the heck wouldn't we?
Well, it's pretty clearly a loss of academic integrity.
Would [[Illegal prime]] lose by not having the allegedly illegal number quoted? Hell yeah.
See the snippet of L. Ron Hubbard's handwriting in [[Xenu]]? That's my personal favourite piece of fair use on Wikipedia (yes, I put it there). Could the article be written without it? Of course. Would it lose something important? Hell yeah.
I expect we can put the number into the article that already exists. I doubt doing it today will stick. I'm just glad we don't have to have Wikipedia perfect on a second-by-second basis. Immediatism really gets in the way of writing the encyclopedia.
- d.
Even by tomorrow, it should be clear to the most zealous DMCA supporter that attempts to keep the number hidden have been superseded by events.
On 5/2/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 03/05/07, Philippe Beaudette philippebeaudette@gmail.com wrote:
Can we write the article without publishing the string? Sure. So why do we have to do it, and potentially expose ourselves to liability? If there's a way to do it, with no loss of academic integrity, why the heck wouldn't we?
Well, it's pretty clearly a loss of academic integrity.
Would [[Illegal prime]] lose by not having the allegedly illegal number quoted? Hell yeah.
See the snippet of L. Ron Hubbard's handwriting in [[Xenu]]? That's my personal favourite piece of fair use on Wikipedia (yes, I put it there). Could the article be written without it? Of course. Would it lose something important? Hell yeah.
I expect we can put the number into the article that already exists. I doubt doing it today will stick. I'm just glad we don't have to have Wikipedia perfect on a second-by-second basis. Immediatism really gets in the way of writing the encyclopedia.
- d.
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On 03/05/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
Even by tomorrow, it should be clear to the most zealous DMCA supporter that attempts to keep the number hidden have been superseded by events.
There's a New York Times article (blood sample or bugmenot required):
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/03/technology/03code.html http://www.nytimes.com/cnet/CNET_2100-1025_3-6180998.html (CNET) http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-TechBit-Digg-Rebellion.html (AP)
The first mentions Wikipedia. None list The Number, but there are reliable sources (which is completely different from Reliable Sources) for it.
- d.
Interesting, that one states Wikipedia got a "letter" (a C&D/DMCA, presumably?) Is that even true? I only find one Wikipedia C&D on Chilling Effects, and that's from years ago.
On 5/3/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 03/05/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
Even by tomorrow, it should be clear to the most zealous DMCA supporter that attempts to keep the number hidden have been superseded by events.
There's a New York Times article (blood sample or bugmenot required):
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/03/technology/03code.html http://www.nytimes.com/cnet/CNET_2100-1025_3-6180998.html (CNET) http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-TechBit-Digg-Rebellion.html (AP)
The first mentions Wikipedia. None list The Number, but there are reliable sources (which is completely different from Reliable Sources) for it.
- d.
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On 03/05/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Interesting, that one states Wikipedia got a "letter" (a C&D/DMCA, presumably?) Is that even true? I only find one Wikipedia C&D on Chilling Effects, and that's from years ago.
This turns out not to be the case - we've had nothing. We're contacting them with a correction.
- d.
On Wed, 2 May 2007, Philippe Beaudette wrote:
Can we write the article without publishing the string? Sure. So why do we have to do it, and potentially expose ourselves to liability? If there's a way to do it, with no loss of academic integrity, why the heck wouldn't we?
We can't write a complete article without publishing the string, just like we can't write a complete article about Mars without publishing the aphelion.
Ken Arromdee wrote:
On Thu, 3 May 2007, doc wrote:
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?
Publishing the string would be part of writing an article. It's true that few people may look up the article in order to get the string, but that's true of many facts in many articles.
In the course of providing references for a wiide range of articles we can follow established referencing standards which include ISBNs. Are people able to remember and quote ISBNs without looking them up? That said, I can't see the momorability of a string as a factor.
Ec
On 03/05/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
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.
I disagree. There's no urgency.
Also, I feel an urge to be contrary to a distributed spamming campaign, which this was.
- d.
On 5/2/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
Wouldn't including the information in the encyclopedia obviate the need for the spam attack in the first place? It's not a rhetorical question, as I'm unfamiliar with all the details of the spam attack.
Short of putting it in sitenotice probably not.
Agreed - in fact, I would go so far as to say that very few legitimate reporting organizations are going to print the key in their newspaper, encyclopedia, radio story, or magazine story. They're going to say that the key was disclosed, but they're not going to say what it is.
I think that's a good model for us to go by.
Philippe ----- Original Message ----- From: Andrew Gray To: English Wikipedia Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2007 12:46 PM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] HD DVD key mess - OFFICE/Foundation?
On 02/05/07, Zoney zoney.ie@gmail.com wrote:
The best, and indeed only IMO, reason to remove it is that we're an encyclopedia, not a newspaper, Slashdot or a public graffiti wall.
I presume there's no reason all the same not to mention it in the HD-DVD article?
As explained earlier, it is perfectly easy to write an informative and useful article about the topic without ever feeling the need to quote the string in question.
-- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
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On 5/2/07, Philippe Beaudette philippebeaudette@gmail.com wrote:
Agreed - in fact, I would go so far as to say that very few legitimate reporting organizations are going to print the key in their newspaper, encyclopedia, radio story, or magazine story. They're going to say that the key was disclosed, but they're not going to say what it is.
I think that's a good model for us to go by.
Actually, it was openly published in a number of columns and some of the mainline news stories about the discovery.
The law here is legitimately somewhat muddled. It may turn out to be legal, but there's also no clear evidence that the MPAA are wrong. The law was written in a way that's explicit for just about everything else, but may or may not cover a number that happens to be a key for such decoders.
I think that the number is of questionable notability. 99.9999% of the people who see it aren't going to go code up a DVD player. For anyone else, it's purely a trivial point. That it exists, was findable, and is now public is notable. We can say all that (and the articles do, now) without listing the actual number.
I separately do morally support the publication; but I don't see it as something Wikipedia can or should get involved in.
On 5/2/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/2/07, Philippe Beaudette philippebeaudette@gmail.com wrote:
Agreed - in fact, I would go so far as to say that very few legitimate reporting organizations are going to print the key in their newspaper, encyclopedia, radio story, or magazine story. They're going to say that the key was disclosed, but they're not going to say what it is.
I think that's a good model for us to go by.
Actually, it was openly published in a number of columns and some of the mainline news stories about the discovery.
The law here is legitimately somewhat muddled. It may turn out to be legal, but there's also no clear evidence that the MPAA are wrong. The law was written in a way that's explicit for just about everything else, but may or may not cover a number that happens to be a key for such decoders.
I think that the number is of questionable notability. 99.9999% of the people who see it aren't going to go code up a DVD player. For anyone else, it's purely a trivial point. That it exists, was findable, and is now public is notable. We can say all that (and the articles do, now) without listing the actual number.
I don't agree on your analysis of the usefulness of the key. An encyclopedia isn't just about social issues, it also covers technical ones. And just as the [[MD5]] article explains the algorithm, complete with hex numbers like 0xEFCDAB89, an article on HD DVD encryptions should include details on how to encrypt/decrypt the DVDs. "That it exists, was findable, and is now public is notable" for social reasons. But the key itself is notable for technical reasons.
Is it really 1 in a million that a reader will code up, for instance, a Linux DVD player which uses the key? I don't know, but it seems to me to be a bit greater possibility than that.
If it turns out to be illegal to publish the key, then that's a different story, of course. But I don't think the notability argument holds water.
I separately do morally support the publication; but I don't see it as something Wikipedia can or should get involved in.
Wikipedia can get involved in it if the foundation doesn't stop it. As for whether or not they should, I'd say providing this type of information is its very mission.
Anthony
On Wed, 2 May 2007, George Herbert wrote:
I think that the number is of questionable notability. 99.9999% of the people who see it aren't going to go code up a DVD player. For anyone else, it's purely a trivial point.
99.999% of people who are told the aphelion distance of Mars to eight significant digits aren't going to use it in any fashion whatsoever, let alone use the eighth decimal place. So?
On 5/2/07, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
On Wed, 2 May 2007, George Herbert wrote:
I think that the number is of questionable notability. 99.9999% of the people who see it aren't going to go code up a DVD player. For anyone else, it's purely a trivial point.
99.999% of people who are told the aphelion distance of Mars to eight significant digits aren't going to use it in any fashion whatsoever, let alone use the eighth decimal place. So?
That can't possibly be true. At least 5% of the people I know closely do or have done interplanetary trajectory work.
(of course, the aphelion is a single point in time; we need the whole orbital parameters set to do anything useful...but ...).
On Wed, 2 May 2007, George Herbert wrote:
I think that the number is of questionable notability. 99.9999% of the people who see it aren't going to go code up a DVD player. For anyone else, it's purely a trivial point.
99.999% of people who are told the aphelion distance of Mars to eight significant digits aren't going to use it in any fashion whatsoever, let alone use the eighth decimal place. So?
That can't possibly be true. At least 5% of the people I know closely do or have done interplanetary trajectory work.
I highly doubt those people took the value from Wikipedia to use in their work. They got it from some other source.
On Wednesday 02 May 2007 13:39, George Herbert wrote:
99.999% of people who are told the aphelion distance of Mars to eight significant digits aren't going to use it in any fashion whatsoever, let alone use the eighth decimal place. So?
That can't possibly be true. At least 5% of the people I know closely do or have done interplanetary trajectory work.
If this is true, then it's a safe bet that the people you know don't represent a good cross-sample of the population at large.
Extrapolating from a single anecdote is rarely a good idea.
On 5/3/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The best, and indeed only IMO, reason to remove it is that we're an encyclopedia, not a newspaper, Slashdot or a public graffiti wall.
Disagree. What could possibly be unencyclopaedic about posting the actual key in a discussion about HD-DVD encryption, or possibly even the DMCA?
In any case, actually keeping Wikipedia clean of that magic phrase is virtually impossible. It's still visible on certain pages. It's one thing to delete an article. But to delete a string?
Steve
On 5/2/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
Of course, it is notable as "the HD DVD key", not as a string of hex digits - there is nothing *numerically* significant about it. We could quite legitimately (if somewhat clumsily) write about it and the giant kerfuffle without ever actually quoting the number, or indeed ever *needing* to. Consider the way newspapers cover high-profile defamation lawsuits without ever quoting the slander - the important story is that something was said and how it was reacted to, not the exact wording of what was actually said...
Or really, the way that any story is covered when certain parts are not available for legal reasons. Think reporting of court cases involving children, for example, or involving terrorism charges.
On 5/2/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
Of course, it is notable as "the HD DVD key", not as a string of hex digits - there is nothing *numerically* significant about it. We could quite legitimately (if somewhat clumsily) write about it and the giant kerfuffle without ever actually quoting the number, or indeed ever *needing* to.
I don't know if it would even be clumsy really, I mean who is expecting a huge hex key in the middle of a sentence :)
Judson [[:en:User:Cohesion]]
Andrew Gray wrote:
Of course, it is notable as "the HD DVD key", not as a string of hex digits - there is nothing *numerically* significant about it. We could quite legitimately (if somewhat clumsily) write about it and the giant kerfuffle without ever actually quoting the number, or indeed ever *needing* to. Consider the way newspapers cover high-profile defamation lawsuits without ever quoting the slander - the important story is that something was said and how it was reacted to, not the exact wording of what was actually said...
I don't necessarily disagree w.r.t. to the key, but many newspapers make a point of quoting relevant portions of the slander when discussing defamation lawsuits, so as to fully inform their readers. Some, like The Economist, even quote their own slander when retracting or apologizing for it, to be clear what they're retracting (e.g. "Last week we said that Tony Blair eats babies, when in fact it turns out he does not. We regret the error.")
-Mark
On Wed, 2 May 2007, Joe Szilagyi wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Zscout370#HD_DVD_Key
"Regardless if it is popular or not, we cannot host the key on here and the Foundation has asked us to remove it on sight. User:Zscout370http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zscout370 *(Return Fire)* 03:57, 2 May 2007 (UTC)"
Did the WMF take that official stance? Where, if I missed it? The specific number/value I don't believe can be even copyrighted in the United States.
Keep in mind that the hex/number itself is now notable.
I was under the impression that the process by which the "Foundation [asks] us to remove it on sight" is a WP:OFFICE action. There certainly doesn't seem to be one listed on [[WP:OFFICE]]; and nobody has claimed there is one; I must conclude that the Foundation has not asked us to remove it on sight.
It's entirely possible, of course, that someone at the Foundation made an informal request to remove an article. Obeying such requests, I would suggest, is a bad idea.
On 02/05/07, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
I was under the impression that the process by which the "Foundation [asks] us to remove it on sight" is a WP:OFFICE action. There certainly doesn't seem to be one listed on [[WP:OFFICE]]; and nobody has claimed there is one; I must conclude that the Foundation has not asked us to remove it on sight.
Er, no. Stuff does not have to be listed on WP:OFFICE to have been an office action; in my experience if someone from the Foundation asks me to perform an administrative action, I generally do. The most common examples are living biography problems.
Where on earth did you get this idea that every office action *has* to be listed on WP:OFFICE?
It's entirely possible, of course, that someone at the Foundation made an informal request to remove an article. Obeying such requests, I would suggest, is a bad idea.
No, it's how it's done without it being a troll magnet.
Note that I am not a Foundation employee and only do anything asked of me by them because I consider it for the good of the projects.
- d.
On Wed, 2 May 2007, David Gerard wrote:
Er, no. Stuff does not have to be listed on WP:OFFICE to have been an office action;
True, so I was generalizing a bit hastily.
But I haven't seen *any* evidence that this is an office action. Nothing on the office page, deletion log not saying "delete per WP:OFFICE", no posts by anyone on this mailing list saying "we deleted it as an office action", nothing at all. "A bunch of admins got together and decided to delete it" isn't an office action.
On 02/05/07, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
True, so I was generalizing a bit hastily. But I haven't seen *any* evidence that this is an office action. Nothing on the office page, deletion log not saying "delete per WP:OFFICE", no posts by anyone on this mailing list saying "we deleted it as an office action", nothing at all. "A bunch of admins got together and decided to delete it" isn't an office action.
I'd call it "obvious good sense", myself. Perhaps that's just me. I note most of the DRV comments are more or less "don't be stupid."
- d.
On 5/2/07, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
On Wed, 2 May 2007, David Gerard wrote:
Er, no. Stuff does not have to be listed on WP:OFFICE to have been an office action;
True, so I was generalizing a bit hastily.
But I haven't seen *any* evidence that this is an office action. Nothing on the office page, deletion log not saying "delete per WP:OFFICE", no posts by anyone on this mailing list saying "we deleted it as an office action", nothing at all. "A bunch of admins got together and decided to delete it" isn't an office action.
How can we make this any clearer?
It was not an office action.
Period.
-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 5/2/07, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
I was under the impression that the process by which the "Foundation [asks] us to remove it on sight" is a WP:OFFICE action. There certainly doesn't seem to be one listed on [[WP:OFFICE]]; and nobody has claimed there is one; I must conclude that the Foundation has not asked us to remove it on sight.
No, the Foundation can intervene whenever they see fit. Office actions are only for when, for whatever reason, the Foundation people can't do it themselves or aren't in the best position to do so, and so they delegate.
On 02/05/07, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
No, the Foundation can intervene whenever they see fit. Office actions are only for when, for whatever reason, the Foundation people can't do it themselves or aren't in the best position to do so, and so they delegate.
The usual reason is that it can be pretty laborious. It's way quicker for Cary to pop onto admins IRC and say "Bad living bio, could someone please grab and fix" than to do it himself. Then some surly experienced living bio editor (e.g. Doc glasgow) will go the hack on it, while Cary gets on with other things.
- d.
Stephen Bain wrote:
On 5/2/07, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
I was under the impression that the process by which the "Foundation [asks] us to remove it on sight" is a WP:OFFICE action. There certainly doesn't seem to be one listed on [[WP:OFFICE]]; and nobody has claimed there is one; I must conclude that the Foundation has not asked us to remove it on sight.
No, the Foundation can intervene whenever they see fit. Office actions are only for when, for whatever reason, the Foundation people can't do it themselves or aren't in the best position to do so, and so they delegate.
This seems to be in direct contradiction with what David Gerard just wrote. Frankly, I'm under the impression that David's got it right. Seems like OFFICE is used when the Foundation wants it to be very clear and public that it was indeed a mandate from the Foundation. There are good reasons to want to accomplish things with a lower profile.
-Rich
On 02/05/07, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
This seems to be in direct contradiction with what David Gerard just wrote. Frankly, I'm under the impression that David's got it right. Seems like OFFICE is used when the Foundation wants it to be very clear and public that it was indeed a mandate from the Foundation. There are good reasons to want to accomplish things with a lower profile.
I must note again that I am not a Foundation employee and only do so much press because I consistently answer my phone ;-)
(in fact, about the only calls I get are Wikimedia press and IT recruiters.)
- d.