Talk:Iran airs new video of UK crewmen, releases new letters from Turney

Sorry, but this article looks pretty silly talking about a video without giving a link to the video itself... Iran has 7 million or so internet users, it's hard to believe that none of them have reposted the video in either downloadable format on some sensible independent wesbite or at least on have-a-look-but-don't-download google/youtube... ? i'm about to start searching myself, but contributors to the article should probably try searching too IMHO... It's not as if Iranians live in a cave and rubbing two sticks together to make fire is their idea of high technology. (E.g. try finding out where the word algorithm comes from.) Boud 19:26, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Well it has to be from a source we are allowed to use. In english, and the site has to be in english. We cannot add the vid from a competing news source. DragonFire1024 19:28, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * i'm not saying we should upload the video to commons.wikimedia, only that we should include a link as a reference. Boud 20:07, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * One possible reason Iranian Internet user have not posted the video on YouTube or similar sites might be that they can't access them. --+Deprifry+ 19:37, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Have a look at this report on filtering of the internet in Iran: http://www.opennetinitiative.net/studies/iran/ - sure there's filtering. Look for C. Global List Results and We found extremely heavy filtering in the pornography (100% of sites filtered) and anonymizer categories (95%). The other categories that experienced filtering were provocative attire (18% of sites blocked), translation sites (15% of sites), gay / lesbian / bisexual sites (11%), women's rights sites (7%), blogging domains (6%), humor (6%), sex education (4%), hate speech (4%), and news outlets (3%). If 100 people in Iran decide they want to publish the video, the Ministry would need better than about 99.5% efficiency in blocking to stop them entirely. Since Iranians would probably not think of publishing a video of British prisoners on a pornographic site, and they would not risk much by publishing it non-anonymously, they would miss both of the highly censored categories. Anything much less than 100% efficiency in censorship cannot stop "hot" information getting out on the internet. Boud 20:07, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * That report is rather dated and as mentioned in the article I linked to, the censorship has been significantly stepped up since then. But as you say, no filtering is perfect and there are certainly ways to circumvent it. But this gets me to the motivation to circumvent the filtering for that purpose. If I were an Iranian Internet user, I'd probably be rather pissed at the censorship. I would also have a very slow connection, since my government restricts my online speed to 128kbps. So uploading a video would take some time. And then why would I go to all that trouble to post a video that promotes the position of my government, the very same government that denies me access to sites like Wikipedia, and presumably since it's hosted on the same server, Wikinews? --+Deprifry+ 20:26, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * It's not just "ways to circumvent it", it's also the huge number of users and the number of different ways of communicating through the internet. The 128kbps article you quote talks about a government request: that's not the same thing as a government (ministry) being able to really implement that request. In any case, i've only had 128kbps at home for several years (it's still officially 128kbps even though in practice it's now 256kbps) and downloading/uploading videos only required moderate patience and multitasking. As for wikipedia, http://fa.wikipedia.org has nearly 20,000 entries, so i don't see the Iranians as being particularly limited by government attempts at censorship - more likely they're annoyed and disrupted but not seriously limited. In any case, the youtube link below presumably proves that the video has been posted by iranian bloggers. :) If i get gnash to work, i might be able to check it (though (c) is another issue). Boud 21:56, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Even if it was on YouTube the chances are it's there illegaly (copyvio). And I don't know if I would be comfortable with that... DragonFire1024 19:38, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Are we allowed a screenshot of this?--Mark Talk 19:45, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * i'm not saying we should upload the video to commons.wikimedia, only that we should include a link as a reference. AFAIK in wikimedia projects we never worry about copyright situations of referenced material - the question is whether it's reliable, verifiable etc. or not. Also AFAIR Iran is not party to the standard international copyright conventions. Especially in the case that the video is the main theme of an article. Linking to it doesn't imply that we're going to defend (nor attack) the people publishing it. Boud 20:07, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

My guess is that it's here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUhfsL1v_rQ&mode=related or maybe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8wPG9VxYxw&mode=related but right now i'm still compiling gnash from cvs since i don't want to use non-free software to view the video (and gnash is still in development), so for the moment i have to rely on other people looking at youtube stuff for me... Boud 20:23, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * noting from WP:EL, "If you know that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work." A clip from a TV news broadcast may not be from a Iranian source, might easily be from news sources from other countries in the region. a screenshot from the clip may be fair use, an external link to a mainstream news source which hosts the video is ok, links to youtube copies are not a good idea - 1. copyright status needs to be verified. 2. content needs to be verified, what if a friendly neighbourhood mashup artist thought he'd try something? –Doldrums(talk) 20:30, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * You're right that that's the present version of the w:WP:EL guideline - it even says Notice on linking to YouTube, Google Video, and other similar sites: There is no ban on linking to these sites as long as the links abide by these guidelines. From Wikipedia:Copyright: If you know that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work. and  Knowingly directing others to a site that violates copyright may be considered contributory infringement. ... This is particularly relevant when linking to sites such as YouTube, where due care should be taken to avoid linking to material that violates its creator's copyright.. i'm pretty sceptical about the notion of "contributory infringement" - that seems to be saying that if some students illegally print off copies (or photocopies) of some textbook which costs $600 a copy or is out of print (but still copyright protected) and you tell someone Fred Jones has a copy of "Algorithms 101" and you suspect it's probably not a legal copy, then you are contributing to the copyright violation? Sounds like a rather suspect extrapolation of copyright law to me, i thought only the person making the copy was violating copyright. People are still allowed to read such a text or refer to it.
 * In any case, this wikinews talk page is not the place to discuss changing the guideline. And it seems like the debate is far from finished: see this link. Boud 21:00, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Here's a BBC retransmission of the Iranian video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8wPG9VxYxw - ie. the one referred to here http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL309146320070330 and here http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10431867. i'll let other people decide whether it's OK with copyright or not and whether or not to add a link to the article - e.g. if the BBC has violated copyright by retransmitting the video, would we be "contributing" to the BBC's copyvio by just linking (not transmitting) the BBC's pirate copy? Alternatively, if the BBC could legally copy it, then doesn't that imply that the youtube contributor had the right to further copy it and distribute it? Boud 23:29, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Text transcript consistent with the video k8wPG9VxYxw - http://www.gulfnews.com/region/Iran/10114824.html Boud 23:32, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Works good as external links. The copyright problem lies at youtube imo. international 04:19, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Editprotected request
editprotected Could an admin please fix the malformed red-link template immediately below the sources section? Thanks, ♪ Tempo Di  Valse ♪ 03:27, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅--PatrickFlaherty (talk) 04:19, 4 December 2008 (UTC)