Wikinews interviewed one of the owners of a New York City bar about a popular new politically-themed cocktail drink called Santorum. The beverage was inspired by the santorum neologism coined in advice columnist Dan Savage’s column Savage Love in response to comments made by former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum about homosexuality; Savage’s readers voted to define santorum as: “the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex.”
Dementia and Alzheimers Care and treatment become easier and more effective if the disease is diagnosed at an early stage. However, quite often, the early symptoms such as memory loss, personality change, cognition problems, etc. go unnoticed as people mistake them as signs of ageing. It is important not to ignore these early warning signs and seek medical assistance as soon as possible.
Why is early diagnosis important?
If dementia is diagnosed at an early stage, it helps planning and preparing for the future in an appropriate way. It includes gathering knowledge and understanding of available treatments. It also helps in making financial arrangements and other preparations for seeking care at a Dementia and Alzheimers Care Facility at a later stage as the disease progresses.
Symptoms of dementia can be caused by several conditions, many of which are treatable and reversible. So, an early diagnosis can help identify and treat the cause before it worsens. Also, most of the available treatments for dementia work best if started early on at the onset of the disease. Early intervention can stop further decline.
Who should you consult for diagnosis of dementia?
The moment you find some behavioural changes in yourself or your relative, and suspect it could be dementia then the first person you should consult is a general practitioner. If he feels that the symptoms actually indicate dementia, he may refer you to a specialist such as a psychiatrist, neurologist, or neuropsychologist, who will examine you, and if found eligible, refer you for subsidized Dementia and Alzheimers Care.
Aged care assessment teams comprising of doctors, nurses and occupational therapists are also available at various hospitals and aged care nursing homes. They assess the needs of elderly, approve their eligibility for certain Government funding and packages, and make recommendations on the level of aged care nursing that they require. Aged care assessment teams help the elderly get the right kind of Dementia and Alzheimers Care.
Conclusion
The moment you suspect that an aged relative is showing some behavioural or cognitive changes that point towards dementia, you must take them to a professional for a complete evaluation. Early diagnosis may help better management of the disease. In case, professionals confirm that your aged relative has dementia, you are left with two choices, either you take care of them personally, or leave them under the care of professionals at a Dementia and Alzheimers Care Facility.
Kankinya is the provider of best Dementia and Alzheimers Care in Canberra. The state of the art Dementia sufferers care facility is not only the best care provider, but is also the safest facility in ACT. So, you can trust us for all your aged care nursing and Dementia and Alzheimers Care needs.
Our homecare facility in Canberra has been architecturally designed and constructed to ensure that our residents, consisting mostly of those suffering from varying degrees of Alzheimers or Dementia, are able to wander freely around the facility. Of all the aged care nursing facilities in Canberra, we are the only recognised and designated facility specialising in advanced dementia management.
Kankinya offers a safe and caring environment to its residents and caters to the needs of a wide range of elderly residents. While our location is convenient to most aspects of Canberra life, but sometimes convenience is not all that you need. We always ask our prospective families as to what exactly they require for their parent or partner and the usual answer is, We want them to be happy and safe and this is the motto that guides us at our aged care facility in Canberra.
We are proud of the fact that we are the providers of best Dementia care in Canberra. Besides being the leaders in aged care and dementia management, we also take pride in being the safest facility in ACT. We comply with all the Nursing Home safety standards to ensure the safety of our residents. We have a 9C Fire Safety Compliance which includes state of the art fire detection systems and sprinklers throughout. We understand that elderly have a right to a good quality of life and freedom, and we have designed our facilities keeping this in mind. Unlike all other Aged care facilities in Canberra, we do not have our residents locked away in so called secure areas that are hidden from the general public. Our residents enjoy highest degree of freedom within the safety of our facility, which provides a highest possible quality of life to our reside.
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About the Author: Kankinya is a residential aged care facility for dementia & alzheimers patients with 80 beds in Canberra, Australia. Our respite care nursing home in ACT for elderly people also provides aged care assessment service. Registered nursing staff are available for 24 hours. Kankinya offers both permanent resident placement and short term respite care with safe and best environment meeting all 44 of 44 standards. Residents have access to allied health professionals i.e. gerontologist, physiotherapist, podiatrist, dietician, speech pathologist, dentist and others.To know more please visit us at:
Police in the West Midlands in England today said nearly 200 kilograms worth of drugs with value possibly as great as £30 million (about US$49 million or €36 million) has been seized from a unit in the town of Brownhills. In what an officer described as “one of the largest [seizures] in the force’s 39 year history”, West Midlands Police reported recovering six big cellophane-wrapped cardboard boxes containing cannabis, cocaine, and MDMA (“ecstasy”) in a police raid operation on the Maybrook Industrial Estate in the town on Wednesday.
The impact this seizure will have on drug dealing in the region and the UK as a whole cannot be underestimated
The seized boxes, which had been loaded onto five freight pallets, contained 120 one-kilogram bags of cannabis, 50 one-kilogram bags of MDMA, and five one-kilogram bricks of cocaine. In a press release, West Midlands Police described what happened after officers found the drugs as they were being unloaded in the operation. “When officers opened the boxes they discovered a deep layer of protective foam chips beneath which the drugs were carefully layered”, the force said. “All the drugs were wrapped in thick plastic bags taped closed with the cannabis vacuum packed to prevent its distinctive pungent aroma from drawing unwanted attention.” Police moved the drugs via forklift truck to a flatbed lorry to remove them.
Detective Sergeant Carl Russell of West Midlands Police’s Force CID said the seizure was the largest he had ever made in the 24 years he has been in West Midlands Police and one of the biggest seizures the force has made since its formation in 1974. “The impact this seizure will have on drug dealing in the region and the UK as a whole cannot be underestimated”, he said. “The drugs had almost certainly been packed to order ready for shipping within Britain but possibly even further afield. Our operation will have a national effect and we are working closely with a range of law enforcement agencies to identify those involved in this crime at whatever level.”
Expert testing on the drugs is ongoing. Estimates described as “conservative” suggest the value of the drugs amounts to £10 million (about US$16.4 million or €12 million), although they could be worth as much as £30 million, subject to purity tests, police said.
Police arrested three men at the unit on suspicion of supplying a controlled drug. The men, a 50-year-old from Brownhills, a 51-year-old from the Norton area of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, and one aged 53 from Brownhills, have been released on bail as police investigations to “hunt those responsible” continue. West Midlands Police told Wikinews no person has yet been charged in connection with the seizure. Supplying a controlled drug is an imprisonable offence in England, although length of jail sentences vary according to the class and quantity of drugs and the significance of offenders’ roles in committing the crime.
This article mentions the Wikimedia Foundation, one of its projects, or people related to it. Wikinews is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation.
The English National Portrait Gallery (NPG) in London has threatened on Friday to sue a U.S. citizen, Derrick Coetzee. The legal letter followed claims that he had breached the Gallery’s copyright in several thousand photographs of works of art uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons, a free online media repository.
Logo of the NPG
In a letter from their solicitors sent to Coetzee via electronic mail, the NPG asserted that it holds copyright in the photographs under U.K. law, and demanded that Coetzee provide various undertakings and remove all of the images from the site (referred to in the letter as “the Wikipedia website”).
Wikimedia Commons is a repository of free-to-use media, run by a community of volunteers from around the world, and is a sister project to Wikinews and the encyclopedia Wikipedia. Coetzee, who contributes to the Commons using the account “Dcoetzee”, had uploaded images that are free for public use under United States law, where he and the website are based. However copyright is claimed to exist in the country where the gallery is situated.
The complaint by the NPG is that under UK law, its copyright in the photographs of its portraits is being violated. While the gallery has complained to the Wikimedia Foundation for a number of years, this is the first direct threat of legal action made against an actual uploader of images. In addition to the allegation that Coetzee had violated the NPG’s copyright, they also allege that Coetzee had, by uploading thousands of images in bulk, infringed the NPG’s database right, breached a contract with the NPG; and circumvented a copyright protection mechanism on the NPG’s web site.
The copyright protection mechanism referred to is Zoomify, a product of Zoomify, Inc. of Santa Cruz, California. NPG’s solicitors stated in their letter that “Our client used the Zoomify technology to protect our client’s copyright in the high resolution images.”. Zoomify Inc. states in the Zoomify support documentation that its product is intended to make copying of images “more difficult” by breaking the image into smaller pieces and disabling the option within many web browsers to click and save images, but that they “provide Zoomify as a viewing solution and not an image security system”.
In particular, Zoomify’s website comments that while “many customers — famous museums for example” use Zoomify, in their experience a “general consensus” seems to exist that most museums are concerned with making the images in their galleries accessible to the public, rather than preventing the public from accessing them or making copies; they observe that a desire to prevent high resolution images being distributed would also imply prohibiting the sale of any posters or production of high quality printed material that could be scanned and placed online.
Other actions in the past have come directly from the NPG, rather than via solicitors. For example, several edits have been made directly to the English-language Wikipedia from the IP address 217.207.85.50, one of sixteen such IP addresses assigned to computers at the NPG by its ISP, Easynet.
In the period from August 2005 to July 2006 an individual within the NPG using that IP address acted to remove the use of several Wikimedia Commons pictures from articles in Wikipedia, including removing an image of the Chandos portrait, which the NPG has had in its possession since 1856, from Wikipedia’s biographical article on William Shakespeare.
Other actions included adding notices to the pages for images, and to the text of several articles using those images, such as the following edit to Wikipedia’s article on Catherine of Braganza and to its page for the Wikipedia Commons image of Branwell Brontë‘s portrait of his sisters:
“THIS IMAGE IS BEING USED WITHOUT PERMISSION FROM THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER.”
“This image is copyright material and must not be reproduced in any way without permission of the copyright holder. Under current UK copyright law, there is copyright in skilfully executed photographs of ex-copyright works, such as this painting of Catherine de Braganza.
The original painting belongs to the National Portrait Gallery, London. For copies, and permission to reproduce the image, please contact the Gallery at picturelibrary@npg.org.uk or via our website at www.npg.org.uk”
Other, later, edits, made on the day that NPG’s solicitors contacted Coetzee and drawn to the NPG’s attention by Wikinews, are currently the subject of an internal investigation within the NPG.
Coetzee published the contents of the letter on Saturday July 11, the letter itself being dated the previous day. It had been sent electronically to an email address associated with his Wikimedia Commons user account. The NPG’s solicitors had mailed the letter from an account in the name “Amisquitta”. This account was blocked shortly after by a user with access to the user blocking tool, citing a long standing Wikipedia policy that the making of legal threats and creation of a hostile environment is generally inconsistent with editing access and is an inappropriate means of resolving user disputes.
Logo of Wikimedia Commons
The policy, initially created on Commons’ sister website in June 2004, is also intended to protect all parties involved in a legal dispute, by ensuring that their legal communications go through proper channels, and not through a wiki that is open to editing by other members of the public. It was originally formulated primarily to address legal action for libel. In October 2004 it was noted that there was “no consensus” whether legal threats related to copyright infringement would be covered but by the end of 2006 the policy had reached a consensus that such threats (as opposed to polite complaints) were not compatible with editing access while a legal matter was unresolved. Commons’ own website states that “[accounts] used primarily to create a hostile environment for another user may be blocked”.
In a further response, Gregory Maxwell, a volunteer administrator on Wikimedia Commons, made a formal request to the editorial community that Coetzee’s access to administrator tools on Commons should be revoked due to the prevailing circumstances. Maxwell noted that Coetzee “[did] not have the technically ability to permanently delete images”, but stated that Coetzee’s potential legal situation created a conflict of interest.
Sixteen minutes after Maxwell’s request, Coetzee’s “administrator” privileges were removed by a user in response to the request. Coetzee retains “administrator” privileges on the English-language Wikipedia, since none of the images exist on Wikipedia’s own website and therefore no conflict of interest exists on that site.
Legally, the central issue upon which the case depends is that copyright laws vary between countries. Under United States case law, where both the website and Coetzee are located, a photograph of a non-copyrighted two-dimensional picture (such as a very old portrait) is not capable of being copyrighted, and it may be freely distributed and used by anyone. Under UK law that point has not yet been decided, and the Gallery’s solicitors state that such photographs could potentially be subject to copyright in that country.
One major legal point upon which a case would hinge, should the NPG proceed to court, is a question of originality. The U.K.’s Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 defines in ¶ 1(a) that copyright is a right that subsists in “original literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works” (emphasis added). The legal concept of originality here involves the simple origination of a work from an author, and does not include the notions of novelty or innovation that is often associated with the non-legal meaning of the word.
Whether an exact photographic reproduction of a work is an original work will be a point at issue. The NPG asserts that an exact photographic reproduction of a copyrighted work in another medium constitutes an original work, and this would be the basis for its action against Coetzee. This view has some support in U.K. case law. The decision of Walter v Lane held that exact transcriptions of speeches by journalists, in shorthand on reporter’s notepads, were original works, and thus copyrightable in themselves. The opinion by Hugh Laddie, Justice Laddie, in his book The Modern Law of Copyright, points out that photographs lie on a continuum, and that photographs can be simple copies, derivative works, or original works:
“[…] it is submitted that a person who makes a photograph merely by placing a drawing or painting on the glass of a photocopying machine and pressing the button gets no copyright at all; but he might get a copyright if he employed skill and labour in assembling the thing to be photocopied, as where he made a montage.”
Various aspects of this continuum have already been explored in the courts. Justice Neuberger, in the decision at Antiquesportfolio.com v Rodney Fitch & Co. held that a photograph of a three-dimensional object would be copyrightable if some exercise of judgement of the photographer in matters of angle, lighting, film speed, and focus were involved. That exercise would create an original work. Justice Oliver similarly held, in Interlego v Tyco Industries, that “[i]t takes great skill, judgement and labour to produce a good copy by painting or to produce an enlarged photograph from a positive print, but no-one would reasonably contend that the copy, painting, or enlargement was an ‘original’ artistic work in which the copier is entitled to claim copyright. Skill, labour or judgement merely in the process of copying cannot confer originality.”.
In 2000 the Museums Copyright Group, a copyright lobbying group, commissioned a report and legal opinion on the implications of the Bridgeman case for the UK, which stated:
“Revenue raised from reproduction fees and licensing is vital to museums to support their primary educational and curatorial objectives. Museums also rely on copyright in photographs of works of art to protect their collections from inaccurate reproduction and captioning… as a matter of principle, a photograph of an artistic work can qualify for copyright protection in English law”. The report concluded by advocating that “museums must continue to lobby” to protect their interests, to prevent inferior quality images of their collections being distributed, and “not least to protect a vital source of income”.
Several people and organizations in the U.K. have been awaiting a test case that directly addresses the issue of copyrightability of exact photographic reproductions of works in other media. The commonly cited legal case Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. found that there is no originality where the aim and the result is a faithful and exact reproduction of the original work. The case was heard twice in New York, once applying UK law and once applying US law. It cited the prior UK case of Interlego v Tyco Industries (1988) in which Lord Oliver stated that “Skill, labour or judgement merely in the process of copying cannot confer originality.”
“What is important about a drawing is what is visually significant and the re-drawing of an existing drawing […] does not make it an original artistic work, however much labour and skill may have gone into the process of reproduction […]”
The Interlego judgement had itself drawn upon another UK case two years earlier, Coca-Cola Go’s Applications, in which the House of Lords drew attention to the “undesirability” of plaintiffs seeking to expand intellectual property law beyond the purpose of its creation in order to create an “undeserving monopoly”. It commented on this, that “To accord an independent artistic copyright to every such reproduction would be to enable the period of artistic copyright in what is, essentially, the same work to be extended indefinitely… ”
The Bridgeman case concluded that whether under UK or US law, such reproductions of copyright-expired material were not capable of being copyrighted.
The unsuccessful plaintiff, Bridgeman Art Library, stated in 2006 in written evidence to the House of Commons Committee on Culture, Media and Sport that it was “looking for a similar test case in the U.K. or Europe to fight which would strengthen our position”.
The National Portrait Gallery is a non-departmental public body based in London England and sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Founded in 1856, it houses a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. The gallery contains more than 11,000 portraits and 7,000 light-sensitive works in its Primary Collection, 320,000 in the Reference Collection, over 200,000 pictures and negatives in the Photographs Collection and a library of around 35,000 books and manuscripts. (More on the National Portrait Gallery here)
The gallery’s solicitors are Farrer & Co LLP, of London. Farrer’s clients have notably included the British Royal Family, in a case related to extracts from letters sent by Diana, Princess of Wales which were published in a book by ex-butler Paul Burrell. (In that case, the claim was deemed unlikely to succeed, as the extracts were not likely to be in breach of copyright law.)
Farrer & Co have close ties with industry interest groups related to copyright law. Peter Wienand, Head of Intellectual Property at Farrer & Co., is a member of the Executive body of the Museums Copyright Group, which is chaired by Tom Morgan, Head of Rights and Reproductions at the National Portrait Gallery. The Museums Copyright Group acts as a lobbying organization for “the interests and activities of museums and galleries in the area of [intellectual property rights]”, which reacted strongly against the Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. case.
Wikimedia Commons is a repository of images, media, and other material free for use by anyone in the world. It is operated by a community of 21,000 active volunteers, with specialist rights such as deletion and blocking restricted to around 270 experienced users in the community (known as “administrators”) who are trusted by the community to use them to enact the wishes and policies of the community. Commons is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, a charitable body whose mission is to make available free knowledge and historic and other material which is legally distributable under US law. (More on Commons here)
The legal threat also sparked discussions of moral issues and issues of public policy in several Internet discussion fora, including Slashdot, over the weekend. One major public policy issue relates to how the public domain should be preserved.
Some of the public policy debate over the weekend has echoed earlier opinions presented by Kenneth Hamma, the executive director for Digital Policy at the J. Paul Getty Trust. Writing in D-Lib Magazine in November 2005, Hamma observed:
“Art museums and many other collecting institutions in this country hold a trove of public-domain works of art. These are works whose age precludes continued protection under copyright law. The works are the result of and evidence for human creativity over thousands of years, an activity museums celebrate by their very existence. For reasons that seem too frequently unexamined, many museums erect barriers that contribute to keeping quality images of public domain works out of the hands of the general public, of educators, and of the general milieu of creativity. In restricting access, art museums effectively take a stand against the creativity they otherwise celebrate. This conflict arises as a result of the widely accepted practice of asserting rights in the images that the museums make of the public domain works of art in their collections.”
He also stated:
“This resistance to free and unfettered access may well result from a seemingly well-grounded concern: many museums assume that an important part of their core business is the acquisition and management of rights in art works to maximum return on investment. That might be true in the case of the recording industry, but it should not be true for nonprofit institutions holding public domain art works; it is not even their secondary business. Indeed, restricting access seems all the more inappropriate when measured against a museum’s mission — a responsibility to provide public access. Their charitable, financial, and tax-exempt status demands such. The assertion of rights in public domain works of art — images that at their best closely replicate the values of the original work — differs in almost every way from the rights managed by the recording industry. Because museums and other similar collecting institutions are part of the private nonprofit sector, the obligation to treat assets as held in public trust should replace the for-profit goal. To do otherwise, undermines the very nature of what such institutions were created to do.”
Hamma observed in 2005 that “[w]hile examples of museums chasing down digital image miscreants are rare to non-existent, the expectation that museums might do so has had a stultifying effect on the development of digital image libraries for teaching and research.”
The NPG, which has been taking action with respect to these images since at least 2005, is a public body. It was established by Act of Parliament, the current Act being the Museums and Galleries Act 1992. In that Act, the NPG Board of Trustees is charged with maintaining “a collection of portraits of the most eminent persons in British history, of other works of art relevant to portraiture and of documents relating to those portraits and other works of art”. It also has the tasks of “secur[ing] that the portraits are exhibited to the public” and “generally promot[ing] the public’s enjoyment and understanding of portraiture of British persons and British history through portraiture both by means of the Board’s collection and by such other means as they consider appropriate”.
Several commentators have questioned how the NPG’s statutory goals align with its threat of legal action. Mike Masnick, founder of Techdirt, asked “The people who run the Gallery should be ashamed of themselves. They ought to go back and read their own mission statement[. …] How, exactly, does suing someone for getting those portraits more attention achieve that goal?” (external link Masnick’s). L. Sutherland of Bigmouthmedia asked “As the paintings of the NPG technically belong to the nation, does that mean that they should also belong to anyone that has access to a computer?”
Other public policy debates that have been sparked have included the applicability of U.K. courts, and U.K. law, to the actions of a U.S. citizen, residing in the U.S., uploading files to servers hosted in the U.S.. Two major schools of thought have emerged. Both see the issue as encroachment of one legal system upon another. But they differ as to which system is encroaching. One view is that the free culture movement is attempting to impose the values and laws of the U.S. legal system, including its case law such as Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp., upon the rest of the world. Another view is that a U.K. institution is attempting to control, through legal action, the actions of a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil.
David Gerard, former Press Officer for Wikimedia UK, the U.K. chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation, which has been involved with the “Wikipedia Loves Art” contest to create free content photographs of exhibits at the Victoria and Albert Museum, stated on Slashdot that “The NPG actually acknowledges in their letter that the poster’s actions were entirely legal in America, and that they’re making a threat just because they think they can. The Wikimedia community and the WMF are absolutely on the side of these public domain images remaining in the public domain. The NPG will be getting radioactive publicity from this. Imagine the NPG being known to American tourists as somewhere that sues Americans just because it thinks it can.”
Benjamin Crowell, a physics teacher at Fullerton College in California, stated that he had received a letter from the Copyright Officer at the NPG in 2004, with respect to the picture of the portrait of Isaac Newton used in his physics textbooks, that he publishes in the U.S. under a free content copyright licence, to which he had replied with a pointer to Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp..
The Wikimedia Foundation takes a similar stance. Erik Möller, the Deputy Director of the US-based Wikimedia Foundation wrote in 2008 that “we’ve consistently held that faithful reproductions of two-dimensional public domain works which are nothing more than reproductions should be considered public domain for licensing purposes”.
Contacted over the weekend, the NPG issued a statement to Wikinews:
“The National Portrait Gallery is very strongly committed to giving access to its Collection. In the past five years the Gallery has spent around £1 million digitising its Collection to make it widely available for study and enjoyment. We have so far made available on our website more than 60,000 digital images, which have attracted millions of users, and we believe this extensive programme is of great public benefit.
“The Gallery supports Wikipedia in its aim of making knowledge widely available and we would be happy for the site to use our low-resolution images, sufficient for most forms of public access, subject to safeguards. However, in March 2009 over 3000 high-resolution files were appropriated from the National Portrait Gallery website and published on Wikipedia without permission.
“The Gallery is very concerned that potential loss of licensing income from the high-resolution files threatens its ability to reinvest in its digitisation programme and so make further images available. It is one of the Gallery’s primary purposes to make as much of the Collection available as possible for the public to view.
“Digitisation involves huge costs including research, cataloguing, conservation and highly-skilled photography. Images then need to be made available on the Gallery website as part of a structured and authoritative database. To date, Wikipedia has not responded to our requests to discuss the issue and so the National Portrait Gallery has been obliged to issue a lawyer’s letter. The Gallery remains willing to enter into a dialogue with Wikipedia.
In fact, Matthew Bailey, the Gallery’s (then) Assistant Picture Library Manager, had already once been in a similar dialogue. Ryan Kaldari, an amateur photographer from Nashville, Tennessee, who also volunteers at the Wikimedia Commons, states that he was in correspondence with Bailey in October 2006. In that correspondence, according to Kaldari, he and Bailey failed to conclude any arrangement.
Jay Walsh, the Head of Communications for the Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts the Commons, called the gallery’s actions “unfortunate” in the Foundation’s statement, issued on Tuesday July 14:
“The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally. To that end, we have very productive working relationships with a number of galleries, archives, museums and libraries around the world, who join with us to make their educational materials available to the public.
“The Wikimedia Foundation does not control user behavior, nor have we reviewed every action taken by that user. Nonetheless, it is our general understanding that the user in question has behaved in accordance with our mission, with the general goal of making public domain materials available via our Wikimedia Commons project, and in accordance with applicable law.”
The Foundation added in its statement that as far as it was aware, the NPG had not attempted “constructive dialogue”, and that the volunteer community was presently discussing the matter independently.
A free content image of the National Portrait Gallery, made available on the Wikimedia Commons
In part, the lack of past agreement may have been because of a misunderstanding by the National Portrait Gallery of Commons and Wikipedia’s free content mandate; and of the differences between Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation, the Wikimedia Commons, and the individual volunteer workers who participate on the various projects supported by the Foundation.
Like Coetzee, Ryan Kaldari is a volunteer worker who does not represent Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Commons. (Such representation is impossible. Both Wikipedia and the Commons are endeavours supported by the Wikimedia Foundation, and not organizations in themselves.) Nor, again like Coetzee, does he represent the Wikimedia Foundation.
Logo of Digital Britain
Kaldari states that he explained the free content mandate to Bailey. Bailey had, according to copies of his messages provided by Kaldari, offered content to Wikipedia (naming as an example the photograph of John Opie‘s 1797 portrait of Mary Wollstonecraft, whose copyright term has since expired) but on condition that it not be free content, but would be subject to restrictions on its distribution that would have made it impossible to use by any of the many organizations that make use of Wikipedia articles and the Commons repository, in the way that their site-wide “usable by anyone” licences ensures.
The proposed restrictions would have also made it impossible to host the images on Wikimedia Commons. The image of the National Portrait Gallery in this article, above, is one such free content image; it was provided and uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation Licence, and is thus able to be used and republished not only on Wikipedia but also on Wikinews, on other Wikimedia Foundation projects, as well as by anyone in the world, subject to the terms of the GFDL, a license that guarantees attribution is provided to the creators of the image.
A photograph of a painting from the Victoria and Albert Museum’s collection – The Conversion of the Proconsul (1515)
As Commons has grown, many other organizations have come to different arrangements with volunteers who work at the Wikimedia Commons and at Wikipedia. For example, in February 2009, fifteen international museums including the Brooklyn Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum established a month-long competition where users were invited to visit in small teams and take high quality photographs of their non-copyright paintings and other exhibits, for upload to Wikimedia Commons and similar websites (with restrictions as to equipment, required in order to conserve the exhibits), as part of the “Wikipedia Loves Art” contest.
Approached for comment by Wikinews, Jim Killock, the executive director of the Open Rights Group, said “It’s pretty clear that these images themselves should be in the public domain. There is a clear public interest in making sure paintings and other works are usable by anyone once their term of copyright expires. This is what US courts have recognised, whatever the situation in UK law.”
The Digital Britain report, issued by the U.K.’s Department for Culture, Media, and Sport in June 2009, stated that “Public cultural institutions like Tate, the Royal Opera House, the RSC, the Film Council and many other museums, libraries, archives and galleries around the country now reach a wider public online.” Culture minster Ben Bradshaw was also approached by Wikinews for comment on the public policy issues surrounding the on-line availability of works in the public domain held in galleries, re-raised by the NPG’s threat of legal action, but had not responded by publication time.
In today’s fast changing world of e-commerce like E-bay, people find shopping online the most convenient way of purchasing items. The fact that a person doesn’t even have to drive to and from the store is exhilarating enough.
To date, E-bay is the most celebrated and the most world-renowned online mall today.
However, there are advantages as well as disadvantages when buying on E-bay. So, it’s important for shoppers out there to take not of these facts before buying items on E-bay.
THE PROS
1. It’s relatively simple and within reach.
Why? Because eBay makes ones shopping spree just a click away.
With E-bay, buying items had never been this varied.
3. It’s twice as fun.
With colorful graphics, unusual items, and weird but quirky listings, entertainment is just around the corner.
4. A viable online price indicator.
Buying on E-bay can give a shopper an insight and update on the present price of certain commodities these days.
5. Money-back possibility.
Most often than not, there’s a higher chance of getting back the buyer’s money if things slipped up.
THE CONS
1. “In good condition” not guaranteed.
There may be a lot of sellers who use the words “in good condition,” but because the buyer cannot visually and personally examine the item before purchasing it, most often than not, the items sold were definitely not scratch free.
2. Additional postal fees.
The common delivery method of items bought by the buyer is through mail; additional charges screw up thereby adding hefty charges just for the delivery alone, plus most transactions are on international basis, so international rates applies.
3. Lack of human touch.
There are people who still prefer to go to the mall not just because they want to go shopping but also they want to tag their friends along, have coffee breaks, and chat along the way.
Buying on e-bay may provide an interactive mode of shopping but it’s not a form of socialization.
4. Too risky.
If Internet is jungle, then there might be big bad wolves lurking on E-bay ready to gobble probable victims. These refer to scams, frauds, and identity theft.
5. A form of enslavement.
Once hooked, shoppers will never get the hang of it. There were cases wherein people buy things on E-bay almost everyday. After all, with the convenience online shopping and credit cards give, who wouldn’t?
Just like any financial decisions, it still pays for shoppers to contemplate first on things before jumping into conclusions.
About the Author: David Riewe is a Publisher and Online Marketer. Visit his eBay Blog to Discover 101 Ebay Auction Tips in this FREE ebook
Microsoft announced on Thursday they are partnering with KIND Financial to help governments track the production and distribution of legal marijuana. Kind Financial, a California-based start-up company, began selling its Agrisoft Seed to Sale software three years ago. Microsoft is admitting Kind’s software on the Government portion of its Azure cloud service.
Although Kind Financial CEO David Dinenberg stressed to The Guardian they “absolutely do not touch the plant”, his company does business with growers and distributors of marijuana, as well as the governments that regulate it. State law in twenty-five US states — but not US federal law — has legalized marijuana, whether medicinally or for recreational use. Kimberly Nelson, Microsoft executive director of state and local government solutions, said they expect significant demand for technology to help states make sure cannabis distribution within their state is done according to their laws.
Kind also provides kiosks similar to automated tellers (ATMs) to facilitate marijuana transactions in dispensaries. The distribution of marijuana is often done only with cash or through machines like the ones Kind offers since many banks in the United States shy away from the marijuana industry entirely. Microsoft is not interacting with this part of Kind’s operations, however.
Microsoft and Kind will apply for contracts with state governments for their software. Currently, they have applied to Puerto Rico, a US territory, where medical marijuana has recently been made legal. BioTrackTHC, a company similar to Kind Financial, already has contracts with Washington, New Mexico, and Illinois.
Dinenberg said his company’s partnership with Microsoft is a major step in advancing the legitimacy of cannabis-related businesses.
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Due to the damage by Hurricane Katrina and subsequent flooding, a number of colleges and universities in the New Orleans metropolitan area will not be able to hold classes for the fall 2005 semester. It is estimated that 75,000 to 100,000 students have been displaced. [1]. In response, institutions across the United States and Canada are offering late registration for displaced students so that their academic progress is not unduly delayed. Some are offering free or reduced admission to displaced students. At some universities, especially state universities, this offer is limited to residents of the area.
The Supreme Court in Lausanne, Switzerland has ruled that Texas hold ’em poker is a game of luck, rather than a game of skill. As a result, only casinos can host poker tournaments in Switzerland. Private games with friends, even where money is at stake, are still permitted under the ruling.
Texas Hold ‘Em was originally widespread legally before the ruling. Image: Todd Klassy.
Poker tournaments had been growing in popularity in the country, with many events held in hotels and bars. Such venues do not have to pay the 50% tax on profits levied on licensed casinos, nor comply with regulations combating money laundering and gambling addiction. Poker is now categorised alongside roulette and slot machines, which as games of luck can only be played inside casinos. Mathematics, strategy, and bluffing were less important in determining the result than chance, said the judges, overturning a lower court ruling to the opposite effect, and disagreeing with the stance of the country’s Federal Gaming Commission.
Before the ruling, it had been estimated by the Swiss Federation of Casinos that there were about 100 unlicensed poker tournaments every weekend. A Swiss poker website, SwissPokerTour.ch, has described the result as “a black day for all amateur poker players in Switzerland.”
A gun is an important tool that can be used for self defense, whether someone is breaking into your home or trying to rob you. However, guns can also be used for sports. Just like every tool, a gun can be used to intentionally harm others or due to ignorance, someone can be harmed accidentally. In order to prevent your gun from being stolen or from a child playing with it, it is recommended that you invest in a fingerprint gun safe. This is no ordinary gun safe as it requires your unique fingerprint to unlock it. This offers further protection from thieves and curious children. In addition to being far more secure than regular gun safes, a fingerprint gun safe is quicker to access in emergencies. You don t have to worry about fumbling around for the key or entering a code. You simply press your finger down and you have access to your gun.
How do fingerprint gun safes work?
These safes function by a technology called biometrics. Biometrics identifies a person based on his/her physical or behavioral characteristics. Hand writing, hand geometry, voice prints, iris structure, and vein structure are all examples of biometric technology. Whereas other security methods, such as passwords and keys, use something you have that can be easily stolen, misplaced, or forgotten, biometrics use who you are to identify you. Besides being very difficult to be lost or forgotten, physical characteristics are very strenuous to impersonate.
Fingerprint gun safes follow a three step process: enrollment, storage, and comparison. Enrollment is the first step you must go through in order to set up your safe. It records basic information about you, such as your name or an identification number. Then, it captures the image of your specific trait (fingerprint) and stores it in the memory. Most fingerprint gun safes give you the option to store multiple fingerprints, if you want to give other people access to the safe.
Storage does not work by storing the complete image, contrary to popular belief. The system analyzes the characteristic and translates it into a code or graph. Some fingerprint gun safes also store this data onto a smart card that you can carry around with you. A smart card looks like a credit card, but it contains an embedded microprocessor inside. A credit card is different, because it uses a magnetic stripe technology that can be easily read, written, deleted, and changed.
The final step, comparison, is self explanatory. When you try to use the system, it compares the trait presented to the one it has stored. If it matches, you are accepted. If it doesn t match, you are rejected.
Biometric systems use a sensor, computer, and software to accomplish the enrollment, storage, and comparison. The sensor detects the characteristic. The computer reads and stores the information. And the software analyzes the characteristic, translating it into a graph or code. The software also performs the comparisons.
How was biometric technology developed?
The source of this technology doesn t have a single source. In fact, the history of biometrics dates back to a form of finger printing being used in China in the 14th century. Explorer Joao de Barros reported that Chinese merchants were stamping palm prints and foot prints on paper with ink, in order to individuate between one another.
In most parts of the world, up until the 1800s, identification relied immensely upon photographic memory. In the 1890s, Alphonse Bertillon, an anthropologist and police desk clerk in Paris, developed a technique of measuring multiple body measurements. Later this technique became known as Bertillonage. He developed this method in order to solve the problem of identifying criminals. Bertillonage was widely used by police authorities, until it was discovered that some people shared the same body measurements.
Later, Richard Edward Henry borrowed the Chinese methods to develop the method of using fingerprints for identification.
During the past three decades, biometric technology has advanced dramatically. Fingerprinting is no longer the sole method of identification. Irises, vein structures, voice, and much more can now be used for identification making the process more accurate. Biometric technology is currently used for legal areas, businesses, and even personal safes. This technology will only continue to advance in the future.
Fingerprint gun safes have adopted biometric technology for improved security and efficiency. Owning a fingerprint gun safe is highly recommended for all gun owners, because your gun can be retrieved much quicker in emergencies, and children and thieves are prevented from laying hands on your weapon.
About the Author: If you want further information in relation to biometric gun safe reviews, stop by E. Stephens’ blog this minute
Nominations for the Labour Party close on Wednesday. So far four candidates have put their names forward: Auckland city councillor Glenda Fryer, former candidate Hamish McCracken, University of Auckland political studies lecturer Meg Bates and employment lawyer Helen White. List MP Phil Twyford, widely expected to succeed Ms Clark, has not put his name forward.
The National Party has narrowed its possible candidates down to two: list MP Melissa Lee or unsuccessful 2008 candidate Ravi Musuku. The decision will be made at a party meeting on 4 May.
The Greens and ACT New Zealand will both contest the by-election, but have yet to select candidates.
