free speech flag

Ummm… the idea of a flag is nice, but yours looks a little too much like the gay rainbow.

Freedom flag
As ridiculous as it sounds, even numbers have become “intellectual property” that corporations can claim ownership

of.

+C0

Um, I think my previous comment got dropped. Anyway,
I improved your flag and made an Icon out of it. Why the dots? It’s the hacker emblem, the glider.
Information wants to be free

Seems to me that every form of information that can be represented by a computer, can be represented as a number. As you’ve shown with your flag, numbers can have visual representations, auditory ones (no doubt the sequence creates a series of tones, if properly translated), and so on. Images, music, text, can all be displayed as numbers or strings of numbers.

Any work that can be copyrighted – as long as it can be represented by a computer – can also be represented as a number. In that sense, we’re *already* copyrighting numbers, and have been doing so for decades. In fact, not only do we generally copyright exact numbers, we copyright numbers that are substantially similar to the original one.

For instance, say you have a novel. When converted to text on a computer, it can be seen as one huge number. Changing a few bits here and there wouldn’t generally help you to avoid copyright infringement, because you’d usually only be changing a letter or two, maybe a few words. So not only is the exact representation “owned” or restricted or whatever, so are any number of variations. In fact, in many cases, paraphrases are also limited, in which case the numbers wouldn’t necessarily look anything alike.

That being the case, we need to ask where the information exists – is it solely in the number? No, not really. If I were to write a program, and my compiler produced a sequence of digits that matched the forbidden string, it would not be a violation of copyright. The difference is the context in which the string appears. In a binary for a program, it would be OK; in the context of information concerning breaking security, it would not be OK, and Big Business would have my head were I to make the connection.

We’ve got a comical (and also dangerous) situation here of Big Business trying to get the genie back into the bottle by using legal threats. They won’t work. Once something makes it to the Internet, there is little chance of ever stopping it. Too many people have it already, too many strongly idealistic people who will risk lawsuits and even imprisonment to safeguard freedom of speech. The Internet crosses too many borders into countries where Big Business can’t reach, where copyright laws are ignored or considered unimportant. There is a tradition in Russia called “Samizdat”. During the Soviet era, banned literature was copied and published by dedicated individuals who risked imprisonment or death if they were caught. No doubt there are many in Russia and elsewhere who would be pleased to carry on the tradition.

So they shall. Big Business would do well to reconsider its nonsensical efforts to calm a storm through legislation, and work to ensure they provide quality material at decent prices.

This is a dumb idea!

BBSs that allow color signatures work great for this. All you need is a 6+ letter nickname.

See Wikipedia
for one example.

Hmm. A bit like the test screen of my TV.

nice flag. the government often takes things way too far

very nice flag! Best regards from Germany!

@mt_artisan.10k :http://hex.free.bg/