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Tuesday, February 5, 2008

A diverse group of approximately 25 people gathered at the Johnson County Library on Monday to participate in reference librarian Scott Vieira’s class, Wikiwhatia? Wikipedia.

Scott opened the session by sharing a disparaging quote from Robert McHenry (former editor-in-chief of Encyclopedia Britannica) comparing Wikipedia to a public restroom. He then shared a quote from Andrew Keen, author of The Cult of the Amateur, in which he stated Wikipedia is the blind leading the blind. Scott shared Wikipedia usage data from a 2007 Pew Internet study showing 36% of adults have consulted Wikipedia and that that Wikipedia receives 10,000-30,000 searches per second. Scott also pointed out that Wikipedia now has over two million articles in English alone (over nine million articles in 250 languages). So there is a discrepancy here, lots of critics and lots of use.

Scott then shared some historical information in order to provide a context for understanding Wikipedia. This included some important names and dates in the history of encyclopedias… including Pliny the Elder (23-79 C.E.) who published 37 Volumes of Natural History, and Joachim Sterck van Ringelbergh (c. 1499-1556) who first used the term encyclopedia, and then d’Alembert and Diderot who published 17 volumes of their French Encyclopedia from 1751-1765. Encyclopedia Britannica was first published in Scotland in serial format 1768-1771.

Scott also discussed more recent history, sharing a photo of Ward Cunningham –who is credited with being the inventor of wiki software. Wikipedia was founded on Jan 15, 2001 by Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales. Sanger left Wikipedia in 2002 and founded Citizendium in 2007 a complementary project which now has 4500 articles.

After the historical perspective, the class moved into using Wikipedia. Everyone in the audience had used Wikipedia. The class explored the content of Wikipedia, realising there is a whole lot going on. Scott demonstrated that the article about “frogs” for example, is semi-protected. The “history of science” article was examined, including the history of changes. Discussion covered how people contribute, who contributes and edits. The group also talked about Wikipedia bots, which aid in routine tasks in a semi-automated or automated fashion.

A discussion about teachers, school media specialists and students regarding their use of Wikipedia ensued. Some teachers and school media specialists are negative about Wikipedia, but Scott’s hope is that they will use it to start a discussion about the need to evaluate and critically think about information (even when it’s from more traditionally reviewed and edited sources).

An unanswered question from an audience member was, “What was the first Wikipedia article?”

Discussion topics from Scott to audience were as follows:

• Do you think Wikipedia is less accurate than published resources and how important is that accuracy to you?
• How do we determine authority on a subject? How important is it that an article be written by an expert? How is Wikipedia changing our idea of what an authority is?
• Currency – the ability to publish immediately – what are the advantages and what are the disadvantages?
• What do we think about the content selection in Wikipedia?
• Should Wikipedia be used by librarians?
• What do you think about the future of Wikipedia?

Monday, October 26, 2020

On Friday, code hosting and sharing website GitHub blocked the public access to youtube-dl, a software which can download videos from the internet via the command-line. The blockade came after GitHub received a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) take-down notice from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). After stripping the metadata from the notice, GitHub published the take-down notice on their site.

Initially started in July 2008 by Ricardo Garcia, youtube-dl is a script written in Python which can download videos from multiple websites including YouTube, LiveLeak and Vimeo. youtube-dl is a FLOSS software and is under public domain. Currently, the repository on GitHub is locked for viewers other than maintainers of the project.

RIAA’s DMCA notice alleged the script’s purpose of existence was to “circumvent the technological protection measures used by authorized streaming services such as YouTube” and “reproduce and distribute music videos and sound recordings owned by our member companies without authorization for such use”.

youtube-dl has multiple unit tests in its source code, which test whether the software works in different circumstances or not. Some of the tests include checking if the script can download Creative Commons licensed videos, videos which did not have square pixels, videos with no age restriction, “offensive to some audiences” per YouTube community and age-restricted videos. One of the tests included the URL of some copyrighted songs. Citing this test, RIAA’s take-down notice claimed “comments in the youtube-dl source code make clear that the source code was designed and is marketed for the purpose of circumventing YouTube’s technological measures”.

RIAA’s notice published by GitHub alleged violation of 17 U.S. Code § 1201 Circumvention of copyright protection systems which says “No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title”. RIAA listed a number of forks of youtube-dl and requested GitHub via the notice they all be made inaccessible.

The notice did not list any incident of anyone using youtube-dl to download or share copyrighted material, nor mention any damages that actually occurred. Unremarked by the notice, YouTube allows videos to be licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. When a copyright holder chooses to release their work, be it a photograph, a video, or audio, under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, they allow everyone to freely own, share or modify the work as long as the reusers properly attribute the author of the work. YouTube also hosts many audio and video recordings in the public domain which can be used for any purpose without any restrictions.

youtube-dl is used by thousands of people around the world. Multiple Creative Commons-licensed and public domain videos on Wikimedia Commons are uploaded via a tool called video2commons, which relies on youtube-dl to download media. youtube-dl also lets users download videos from LiveLeak — a video-sharing platform for citizen journalism. Videos downloaded using youtube-dl are also used for the purpose of fair use, or for evidence.

youtube-dl comes with a small JavaScript interpreter where it acts as a web-browser would behave while receiving video data from the server. The script has “extractors” for various websites to handle videos from different sources. Whenever something is displayed on the user’s screen, the device has a copy of that content. Web browsers “download” data while surfing the web, though most of it is not persistent on the device. It is possible to download copyrighted photos by using a web-browser. The way the world wide web works, there are no technological prevention measures to prevent recording and sharing of content such as RIAA talks about in the notice. Photos and texts can be downloaded by taking screenshots, videos by screen recording tools, and audio by recording on a tape if not an audio recording software.

Multiple users expressed their disappointment on Twitter and Internet Relay Chat. One of the users said “this is yet another example of why we should use git as it was intended, as a distributed network, rather than rely on one single proprietary server”. Git is decentralised version-tracking software which is used by a large number of software companies and projects. It is possible to host one’s own git server for software development. While Microsoft’s GitHub is a centralised git server, development of software using git does not require a GitHub account.

Soon after the public access to the repository was locked, multiple users started sharing the source code via self-hosted git servers, Tor sites and via the Torrent protocol leading to a Streisand effect. Streisand effect is when a measure to censor information causes further spread of that information. The binary files of the software are still available on its website for users to download. Some people came up with esoteric ways to share the source code, by converting the compressed code into photographs and providing shell commands to convert to the source code.

GitHub’s DMCA repository, where the takedown notice was published for public viewing, was subject to contant vandalism from multiple GitHub users. One user submitted a pull request, merging the source code of youtube-dl along with the DMCA repository. This enabled users to view youtube-dl’s source code from within the DMCA repository, provided they know the commit id.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation said on Twitter “Youtube-dl is a legitimate tool with a world of a lawful uses. Demanding its removal from Github is a disappointing and counterproductive move by the RIAA.” Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation, has been highly critical of DRM (digital rights management, the subject of the DMCA) for many years now.

Wikinews reached out to Sergey M?, one of the maintainers of youtube-dl script, however Sergey said he “won’t give any comments at this time”. Later, he shared an update on the IRC channel. Sergey said, “they require complete removal of so called YouTube’s rolling cipher implementation […] GitHub requires in order to reinstate the repo […] under this conditions I could reinstate it in Saturday/Sunday already but this is an unsatisfactory outcome”. He also said, “I can’t guarantee whether [or] not we will bend over them considering the situation with @phihag [Philipp Hagemeister] but we’ll see soon what we can do in order to keep the max we have and mitigate potential legal issues at the same time”.

EFF is yet to respond to Wikinews queries. Wikinews also reached out to Philipp Hagemeister, a former maintainer and contributor of the youtube-dl project to discuss this takedown.

When did you get to know about the takedown notice and what were your initial reactions?

((Philipp Hagemeister)) I saw the takedown notice along with anyone else, on reddit. Since I am no longer involved with the youtube-dl project (except for occasional contributions, my maintainership ended in 2016), I don’t know any details.

((RS)) Does YouTube implement DRM for videos not under Creative Commons license, and if so, how does youtube-dl bypass it? Could you please elaborate the procedure?

((Philipp Hagemeister)) YouTube implements DRM for YouTube Movies. youtube-dl does not support those.

YouTube has multiple non-DRM video delivery protocols. I’m not up to date about specifics; my last dabbling in this was in 2015.

One of these protocols is described here. YouTube uses JavaScript to compute parts of the URLs. youtube-dl executes this JavaScript, just like a web browser.

((WN)) Could you also explain in brief how youtube-dl functions, and how the maintainers had intended it to be used?

((Philipp Hagemeister)) youtube-dl downloads and plays videos and music, just like any other web browser, from over 1000 different services. Its uses are varied: It enables video playback on many devices (e.g. Raspberry Pi) where the video services don’t work properly, it makes high-quality video playable for people with a bad or no Internet connection, it enables disabled users to use tools to play videos, and it is used for archival and research.

((WN)) What do you think of the DMCA notice?

((Philipp Hagemeister)) I think it is not warranted because youtube-dl is entirely legal. As the DMCA notice has no effect for me personally, I’m not really the right person to address it.

((WN)) Why were the copyrighted tests in the source code? Could they be replaced?

((Philipp Hagemeister)) I’m not sure why, but my guess is that users requested support for these videos and thus they were added as test cases. They can be removed trivially, without losing any function of youtube-dl.

((WN)) Are you aware Electronic Frontier Foundation said it was a “disappointing and counterproductive move”? What do you think should be the next steps?

((Philipp Hagemeister)) Yes, and I concur. I’m no longer involved in the project. If I were, I would probably just remove the test cases, block these music videos (RIAA is not worth the trouble for me, that can be done by other projects), and get the project back online.I understand people who think differently.

Friday, October 21, 2005

British Columbia, Canada — The BC Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) and the government have both accepted mediator Vince Ready’s recommendations.

Premier Gordan Campbell announced in a news conference today that he will accept the plan unconditionally.

However, Jinny Sims (head of the BCTF) has said that she will only accept the proposal if the government provides firm class-size numbers and support for special-needs students.”We need for our students a guarantee in writing that this government will make changes to the School Act to put firm class-size numbers” Sims also said, “And in the School Act, they will address class composition. And that means support for special needs kids”.

Sims will recommend to her union to accept the proposal if these conditions are met.

Key points of the proposal to which both sides have agreed include:

• Government spends $40 million to “harmonize” teachers salaries across BC
• Another $20 million is spent on top of current funding to reduce class-size and help special-need students. This brings that funding up to $120 million.
• The government consults with the BCTF about how class-size reduction should take place.
• The government puts $40 million (one-time) into the unions long-term disability fund.
• The government raises pay for substitute teachers to $120 a day.

“I believe the recommendations provide a fair basis for resolution of the present dispute, especially in the context of the additional opportunities for the BCTF to address these and other issues in the next few months,” Ready’s report said.

If the union votes this weekend, classes could be in this Monday.

Justice Brenda Brown of the British Columbia Supreme Court made an order today that the BCTF must pay $500,000 for being in contempt of court. She noted that the fine would have been “significantly larger”, were it not for the fact that the two sides were working toward an agreement to quickly end the labour disruption. The amount was based on the union’s membership numbers and assets ($15 million).

Legal commentators noted that this is the largest penalty ever ordered by a Canadian court following a finding of contempt. A lawyer for the employer noted that he was satisfied with the size of the fine. Still, it’s not over yet. The court has the right to order further penalties if the union and its members continue their illegal job action. As well, an independent prosecutor appointed by the Attorney General’s office is reviewing the case to determine whether charges of criminal contempt are appropriate.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

A jury in New Jersey yesterday acquitted a Newark man of murdering five teens who vanished in the city in 1978. The prosecution had contended Lee Anthony Evans trapped the boys in an empty house before burning it down.

Alvin Turner, 16; Melvin Pittman, 17; Randy Johnson, 16; Ernest Taylor, 17; and Michael McDowell, 16 disappeared on August 20, 1978. Recently homicide detectives got involved and in March last year they arrested Evans and his co-accused Philander Hampton. Hampton, Evans’s cousin, had told police in 2008 that the pair were behind the teens’ deaths and, although witnesses placed the boys in Evans’s pickup truck, his testimony alone linked Evans to the mystery.

Evans represented himself through the majority of the case, although he did get his court-appointed lawyer, Olubukola Adetula, to take control of much of the trial’s latter stages. The case has been on trial since October 28. It was Adetula who cross-examined Hampton.

The defense noted the poor record of drug dealer and user Hampton, who has spent time in jail for crimes including theft. He confessed in a plea deal that sees him sentenced to ten years in prison in exchange for his testimony, but will be eligible for parole within months as he has already served most of the two years required by 1978 guidelines.

Hampton testified Evans, who is now 58, burned the quintet alive in revenge after discovering they had broken into his property and stolen a pound of cannabis. Evans often offered odd jobs to the teens and Hampton said Evans brought the youths in two trips to the vacant Camden Street house on the pretense of helping move boxes.

Hampton, who is set to be paid $15,000 by the state to assist his relocation for his safety, testified he acted as a guard for the first two youngsters whilst Evans brought the second group; he claimed to have believed all that was planned was a stunt to scare the five. He further told the court that Evans imprisoned all five in a cupboard sealed by a solitary nail, pouring gasoline (petrol) onto the building’s floors. Hampton said he gave Evans a match, who then set the house alight.

Other witnesses described seeing the boys in the back of Evans’s truck, and friends of the missing told the court the five had previously broken into Evans’s home to steal the drug. All five had small quantities of cannabis in their rooms when they vanished. However, testimony was inconsistent; the time of the final drug theft was in dispute, and Evans made a point of inconsistencies in testimony about the last known sightings of the boys, claiming accounts of them in his vehicle had changed over time.

The house in question was destroyed by fire. Specially trained dogs and sonar equipment both failed to show any trace of bodies at the site and the defense pointed out police searched a second site, which they said implied Hampton’s account was not fully believed. It took thirteen hours of questioning before Hampton volunteered his claims, and police spent a year attempting to find evidence to reinforce them without success.

The jury has been deciding its verdict since Friday and spent roughly twelve hours deliberating. Victims’ relatives wept as the foreman read out the verdicts, and Michael McDowell’s sister Terry Lawson insisted “not guilty does not mean innocent. Mr. Evans may have escaped the law but never the lord.” She nonetheless expressed gratitude the case went to trial. Multiple family members, including Lawson, have previously expressed confidence Evans killed their loved ones.

Evans sobbed after leaving court, after asking Judge Patricia K. Costello to tell him “You’re dismissed”. “Man, you won,” a friend told him, but Evans said he did not feel a winner although he was glad of the result. “That was the jury that wasn’t the people… It’s like someone put you in the oven and burned you up. You can’t undo that.”

He went on to claim Essex County officials and Newark mayor Cory Booker engaged in a corrupt conspiracy against him, with Brooker using the arrests to aid his re-election campaign; Evans claims the timing was no coincidence. Brooker denies the allegations. Evans contends he should never have been prosecuted.

Costello has promised to later deal with what she called “astonishing” behavior by assistant prosecutor Peter Guarino. Retrials were twice sought by the defense and denied; once, he asked a witness if they knew of an unrelated murder by the accused’s late brother. The other time a police officer appearing for Guarino as a witness mentioned a statement that two men were seen fleeing the fire; Costello had already said this was inadmissible evidence because the person behind the claim had since died. These incidents led to discussions without the jury present.

“[W]e are of course disappointed in the verdict, but respect the jury’s process,” said Essex County Acting Prosecutor Carolyn Murray. To answer a press question, she added “with respect to this case criminally, this case is closed.”