From a private list I'm on, Thought some of you guys may be interested ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: MW <---@gmail.com> Date: Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 8:05 PM Subject: [---] Australian Census Data Released Under CC License, But Official Site Tries To Make It Hard To Download To: --- <--->
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130421/02575922789/australian-census-data-released-under-cc-license-official-site-tries-to-make-it-hard-to-download.shtml > > by Glyn Moody > > Mon, Apr 22nd 2013 8:09pm > > The whole point about adopting Creative Commons licenses is to make it easier > for people to share and use works released under them. Sometimes, though, you > get the impression that certain organizations adopting these licenses would > rather that didn't happen, as in the following case from Australia, reported > by IT News: > > The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released the latest census data for > free under a Creative Commons license but appears to be steering people > towards a $250 mailed out DVD rather than making it easy to download the > information directly over the internet. > > Programmer and freelance journalist Grahame Bowland who first noticed it, > said the government agency is going to great lengths to discourage people > from downloading the files directly by dint of a convoluted site layout and > Javascript functions that obfuscate file paths. > > The post then goes on to describe in detail some of the attempts to make it > difficult to download all of the census data, including a hard-to-find > registration page, a complex matrix of download options, and Javascript code > that does stuff like this: > > // Function: guidGenerator > > > // Description:returns a pseudo-random GUID > > > //This is appended to a url for 2 reasons > > > //1. to make the URL unique, so that the browser always gets it and doesn't > use a cached version > > > //2. to make a URL look like its got a unique key, in a naive attempt to fool > a not-so-wily hacker > > > //into thinking they can't download a datapack directly if they know the URL > pattern, because they > > > //need a unique key. > > Notice how anyone who might want to download datapacks directly is branded a > hacker. That's a worrying attitude, since it seems to equate people who want > to take advantage of the CC license to explore the census without jumping > through the site's hoops as shady subversives (I doubt the comment used the > term "hacker" in its more positive sense). > > As the IT News story suggests, the motivation for this obfuscation seems to > be to encourage people to pay AU $250 (about US $257) for the DVD version > instead. To save others from having to deal with the unhelpful Web site, > Bowland generously stumped up the $250 himself, and made the full census > database freely available as a torrent, as is perfectly legal under the CC-BY > license. This shows perfectly why it is pointless trying to make it hard for > people to download content that is CC licensed: once anyone has obtained a > copy, they can then make it available in a more convenient form, neatly > by-passing forlorn attempts to control something that has been set free > forever. _______________________________________________ Wikimediaau-l mailing list Wikimediaau-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaau-l
