Archive for December, 2021

30
Dec

British Parliament bans smoking in pubs, workplaces and clubs

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Friday, February 17, 2006

MPs at the British Parliament have voted by large majority of 200 to bring in legislation banning smoking in all pubs, clubs and workplaces in a landmark free vote. The ban is expected to come into force from summer 2007.

The originally proposed fine of £200 was raised to £2500 for failing to stop people smoking in banned areas in the late stages of the parliamentary process. Other fines include a fixed penalty notice of £50 for lighting up in banned areas and spot fines of £200 for failing to display no smoking signs in banned areas.

Smoking may also be banned in “substantially enclosed” venues such as railway stations and football stadiums; this may also include cars carrying passengers but no decision has been taken on this as yet. Ministers will finalise precise regulations after a three month consultation.

The vote was politically fraught, as the Labour Party in government had proposed a ‘compromise’ bill, in line with their election manifesto, which would allow pubs not serving food to be exempt from the ban. With many Labour MPs threatening to rebel against this compromise however, in favour of a full ban, Labour granted its members a free vote. MPs then voted for the full ban by a margin of 453 votes to 125,­ a majority of 328.

MPs then debated a last-minute amendment to exempt private members clubs, which was also rejected, by 384 votes to 184,­ a majority of 200. The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, voted for a complete ban along with his health secretary, Patricia Hewitt.

The ban will bring England in line with Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, which will all be introducing a full smoking ban for pubs and clubs. The bill also gives ministers powers to increase the age for purchasing cigarettes from 16 to 18 which ministers will begin the consultation process upon shortly.

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=British_Parliament_bans_smoking_in_pubs,_workplaces_and_clubs&oldid=546838”
29
Dec

Canada’s Don Valley West (Ward 25) city council candidates speak

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Friday, November 3, 2006

On November 13, Torontonians will be heading to the polls to vote for their ward’s councillor and for mayor. Among Toronto’s ridings is Don Valley West (Ward 25). Three candidates responded to Wikinews’ requests for an interview. This ward’s candidates include John Blair, Robertson Boyle, Tony Dickins, Cliff Jenkins (incumbent), and Peter Kapsalis.

For more information on the election, read Toronto municipal election, 2006.

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Canada%27s_Don_Valley_West_(Ward_25)_city_council_candidates_speak&oldid=435105”
27
Dec

Nokia Inc. announces plans for iPhone rival

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Thursday, August 30, 2007

Announced early Wednesday morning at Nokia’s GoEvent, in a plan to expand the company’s revenue, Finland-based company Nokia Inc. is developing a mobile phone similar to its rival iPhone, which will be available in the near future for Nokia customers. The phone is expected to be available by 2008.

Most of the features are the same as the iPhone’s. They include music, games, and many other features, even ones that the iPhone may not have. Ovi (in Finnish meaning “Door”) will be the door for more than 2 million songs and games available for download on the new device. Users will be able to download wirelessly in their own home or anywhere there is access to a computer.

But this is not the first time Nokia has made an attempt like this to increase its revenue. In October of 2003 the company revealed the N-Gage, a game-playing cell phone, but was “stocked-out” due to poor sales. The N95 smartphone, which was released in the U.S. on April 7, 2007 (before the iPhone on June 29, 2007) includes WiFi, a GPS, a music player, and a 5 megapixel digital camera. The three other phones that were revealed at the event in London will be in-stock next quarter. The new N81 and the modified N95 smartphones were among the revealed at yesterday’s event; the N81 is a new member to Nokia’s smartphone family; the N95 has been modified by having more memory and a sleeker LCD screen.

When Nokia was asked about the striking similarity between this and the iPhone, Nokia’s Executive Vice President and General Manager of Multimedia, Anssi Vanjoki, said, “If there is something good in the world then we copy with pride.”

Nokia first demoed their iPhone rival August 29th. During their demo they omitted the fact that the demo was for the software to be in use, not the actual hardware.[1]

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Nokia_Inc._announces_plans_for_iPhone_rival&oldid=610221”
27
Dec

Tips To Follow When Sport Betting Online

   Posted by: Admin    in Betting

Sports betting is a great enhancement to the lives of people watching sports. Not only do you get excited about your favorite team winning, you also have the chance of making profit. Sports betting even enhances satisfaction because of the introduction of sports betting online. With sports betting online, it is so much easier to do betting. One can just go to an online sportsbook and place their bets. Everything is done on the Internet and you do not have to leave the house to do your betting activities. Aside from this, sports betting online is enhanced by the Internet. You can research stats and information about different sports teams with just a few clicks of the mouse. Many sports fans and non-sports fan love sports betting online because it is practical and exciting. We want to help you enjoy sports betting so here are a few tips to follow to assure you of winning money while enjoying the games.

Betting Tip # 1: Always have a budgeted bankroll. Before you decide to wager on anything, it is important that you apply good money management to your sports betting activities. Sit down, get a piece of paper and pen plus a calculator and compute the amount of money you can put aside for sports betting. The same concept applies in budgeting your dinners at restaurants or the money you spend on clothes. The amount of money you should be willing to spend for sports betting online is an amount you can afford to lose. When you have a number, stick with that figure. Apply discipline to your bankroll management and it will make you more money rather than spill money.

Betting Tip # 2: Look around for the best sportsbook. It is important you checkout all the bookmakers and sportsbooks available. Most of the popular bookmakers have online versions so you will not have a hard time looking for them on the web. Sometimes, especially in sports like college basketball, these oddmakers will have different numbers. Choose the bookie with the best odds and numbers. Be careful with the numbers because it can go as low as just three points and that three points can make the difference between a win and a loss.

Betting Tip # 3: Avoid making sports bets when you’re drunk. Your judgment will be impaired and you will regret it in the end. You not only lose money, you also end up with a bad and expensive hangover.

Betting Tip # 4: Research, research and do more research. Know everything there is to know about the particular sport you are betting on. Research about the teams, the issues they face and detailed information such as injuries of key players.

27
Dec

Kentucky lawmaker in critical condition after fight in high school cafeteria

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Saturday, April 16, 2011

One of Kentucky’s newest state lawmakers, who also serves as a high school teacher, sustained a critical head injury Tuesday morning while intervening to break up a fight between two students in the school’s cafeteria.

State Representative DeWayne Bunch (R), 49, was listed in “extremely critical” condition when he was taken to the Baptist Regional Medical Center in Corbin, Kentucky, immediately following the fight between two male teens.

Bunch was reported as being unconscious and bleeding from the ears when emergency responders arrived at Whitley County High School.

The fight, between a fifteen- and sixteen-year-old, was caught by a surveillance camera which showed Bunch being punched by the sixteen-year-old, according to the sheriff. It is not clear what started the fight, which took place in the school’s cafeteria during breakfast.

The teens have been charged with one count of first-degree assault and two counts of third-degree assault. They are both in custody at a juvenile detention center according to the sheriff.

Bunch was later transported to University of Kentucky Medical Center in Lexington, Kentucky. His family has requested no information be publicly released about his condition.

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Kentucky_lawmaker_in_critical_condition_after_fight_in_high_school_cafeteria&oldid=1219221”
27
Dec

Four British energy suppliers face investigation into claims of misselling

   Posted by: Admin    in Uncategorized

Sunday, September 5, 2010

The Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem), the regulator of the electricity and gas markets in Great Britain, has launched an investigation into four of the largest British energy suppliers over suspicions that they not be complying with face-to-face and telephone sales regulations. The four organisations facing scrutiny could be fined up to 10% of their annual turnover if it is found that they are breaking sales regulations. Scottish Power, npower, Scottish and Southern Energy and EDF Energy are all to face questioning by the organisation.

Ofgem has urged customers of the four companies to alert the energy regulator, “if they are concerned about the sales approach any domestic suppliers have taken when selling energy contracts, either face-to-face or by telephone,” according to a statement. “As part of the investigation process Ofgem will examine any evidence of non-compliance and consider whether there are grounds for exercising enforcement powers.”

New regulations on sales tactics by energy suppliers were recently introduced, and, Ofgem has said, energy suppliers must be “proactive in preventing misselling to customers both face to face and over the phone. Also, if suppliers are selling contracts face to face they must provide customers with an estimate before any sales are concluded. In most circumstances customers should also receive a comparison of the supplier’s offer with their current deal.” Only one in five consumers consider energy suppliers to be trustworthy, and 61% of people feel intimidated by doorstep sales people from energy companies. According to the organisation Consumer Focus, “complaints have declined since new rules came into effect this year, but suppliers still seem to be flouting the rules. Some customers are still being given misleading quotes and information, which leave them worse off when they switch provider.”

The newspaper The Guardian has reported that “householders are reporting that sales agents working for the energy suppliers are giving them misleading information and quotes which leave them worse off when they switch supplier.” Consumer Focus has said that if energy companies continue to break the rules, they could be banned from doorstep-selling completely. The report goes on to say that “new figures from helpline Consumer Direct show that while the number of complaints has fallen since last year, about 200 cases of mis-selling are being reported each month.” However, Scottish Power said it insists on “the highest standards possible for all of our sales agents”, and npower told the Financial Times that it was “confident that the processes we have in place mean that we comply with our regulatory obligations”. EDF added that it was “fully compliant with all obligations regarding sales of energy contracts”.

According to the regulator, the obligations are serious and must be followed by energy supplies, or they will face “tougher sanctions than those available under more general consumer protection law.” Ofgem has published a guide advising consumers what they should do should an energy salesperson contact them in person of by telephone. Improper sales tactics are still common in the industry—in 2008 an Ofgem investigation found that 48% of gas customers and 42% of electricity customers were worse off after switching supplier on the doorstep. Npower was fined £1.8 million in 2008 by the organisation, and Ofgem insists that they are “committed to taking action” over improper sales activities by energy companies. “Suppliers have existing obligations to detect and prevent misselling and new licence conditions were brought in following our probe to further increase protection for customers,” said Andrew Wright, a Senior Partner of the regulator. “We expect all suppliers to comply with these tougher obligations but if our investigations find otherwise we will take strong action.”

HAVE YOUR SAY
What are your experiences with doorstep salespeople? If they persuaded you to change energy providers, were you worse off as a result?
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Head of energy at Consumer Focus, Audrey Gallacher, called the investigation “a welcome step … to address years of customers getting a bad deal on energy prices on their doorstep. While many doorstep sales people will do a good job, the pay and rewards system continues to encourage mis-selling, despite years of regulation and voluntary initiatives. If better advice for customers and enforcement of the tougher rules doesn’t end the flagrant abuse of this form of selling the big question will be whether it should be completely banned.” Christine McGourty, director of Energy UK, which represents the leading gas and electricity companies, said that “the companies involved will collaborate with the Ofgem investigation and are awaiting further details from the regulator. Any sales agent in breach of the code will be struck off the approved energy sales register.” Which? chief executive, Peter Vicary-Smith, has said he considers the situation “shocking”, saying that the investigation “will do nothing to improve consumer trust in energy suppliers. We’re pleased that Ofgem has promised tough measures against any firms guilty of mis-selling. We hope it uses this opportunity to tighten rules around telesales so they are in line with those for face to face sales.”

SNP Westminster Energy spokesperson Mike Weir MP, however, said that the investigation “does nothing to tackle the real problem of fuel prices which leave many Scots facing great difficulty in heating their homes … Rather than tinkering around the edges Ofgem should be looking at how to reduce prices for vulnerable households.” Gareth Kloet, Head of Utilities at Confused.com, one of the UK’s biggest and most popular price comparison services, also welcomed the inquiry. “It is unacceptable for energy companies to mislead customers like this,” he said, adding that Confused.com has previously “urged energy providers to either stop the practice of doorstep selling or make it very clear to households that better deals are available online. There is no reason why door-to-door salesmen can’t show people online deals and even help households switch to them.”

“Our research reveals customers could end up paying £167 more than they need to as door-to-door salesmen are unable to offer the discounts that are applied online. The changes that have been made to date are a welcome addition to safeguard customers; however this review has been much needed for a long time. Hopefully it will mark the end of customers being overcharged and missold,” Kloet continued. “Our message to energy consumers remains the same: they should shop around online to make sure they’re getting the best deal possible and turn these salesmen away.”

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Four_British_energy_suppliers_face_investigation_into_claims_of_misselling&oldid=2498992”
27
Dec

Warner Music sees large growth digital music revenue

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Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Warner Music Group first quarter earnings rose sharply mostly from growth in digital music sales offsetting falling CD sales. Warner Music sells digital music to several online services including Apple’s iTunes at wholesale. The company’s first-quarter revenue from digital music sales doubled to US$69 million, accounting for 7% of overall revenue. Madonna, Green Day, and James Blunt are signed to subsidiary labels of Warner.

Warner Music has undergone restructuring after being sold in 2004 by former parent company Time Warner. Cutting costs, exploiting current assets, and digital music has been the company’s focus since going public in May.

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Warner_Music_sees_large_growth_digital_music_revenue&oldid=546503”

By Kevin Gianni

This interview is an excerpt from Kevin Gianni’s The Healthiest Year of Your Life, which can be found at http://thehealthiestyearofyourlife.com. In this excerpt, Jonny Bowden shares on probiotics, SAMe and more.

The Healthiest Year of Your Life with Jonny Bowden, author of many books including The Most Effective Natural Cures on Earth and a board certified nutrition specialist.Kevin:

What about probiotics. I’ve heard two different camps that one, you want to get just a good quality probiotic and the other one is you have to get something that actually releases and your small intestine and not in your stomach.

Jonny:

Well, I’m going to differ on this, because there are people whose entire nutrition career are spent on the minutia of probiotics and when to take them and what stream is most affected and which ones adhere to the gut. As you know, there’s bifida bacteria. There’s Lactobacillus. There’s a dozen different strains and different proponents of different strains and even some discussion about when the best time is to take them, on an empty stomach, at the end of the meal and that sort of stuff. Actually, it’s not my area of expertise. I know that over all we want to find a formula we can believe in and take and I think it’s a good thing to take as a supplement. I think it’s a good thing to look for foods that contain them naturally. Again, fermented foods like the olives in the olive bar at the store. The bigger health food stores have the ones that are sitting out there on the counter. Those are naturally fermented, unlike the little green olives in the chemicals that are sitting in the jars. Naturally fermented food, naturally fermented soy sauce, these things are rich — and sauerkraut — these are rich in the probiotics that we need and the other thing is, just as yeast are living organisms, so are probiotics and they also require food and their food is called prebiotics and those are also found in supplements and in foods and those are the things that feed these little probiotics that actually live in your gut once you get them in there. So I think this it’s probably worth an entire discussion on probiotics alone, but let’s leave it by just saying that they’re very important and they help your gut occology and they help you balance your whole inner system that allows you to assimilate and digest nutrients.

Kevin:

Great. I want to talk about SAMe.

Jonny:

Yes.

Kevin:

It’s something I don’t know much about so I’m going to open the floor up to you to talk about that and explain what it is and how it can help.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yeOZ0FXioc[/youtube]

Jonny:

Well, I put it in my Desert Island Cures (chapter in The Most Effective Natural Cures on Earth), because again, I think it’s such an important supplement. Again, it’s not for everybody, but because it’s not cheap. It’s not one of the cheaper supplements and usually people turn to it when they have a particular condition that it can help and there are a number of them that it’s very helpful with.

The thing is, some of this frankly boring biochemistry, but I’ll try to put it in terms that at least won’t make your eyes glaze over. We have sparkplugs in a car. SAMe are like sparkplugs. Basically, there is a process called methylation and if you’ve ever seen a relay race, these guys when they do the relay race and they pass that torch, well, methylation is like that passing of the torch in a relay race. One guy runs and they get to the finish line and he hands the torch to the next guy. The next guy runs and they do that at the opening of the Olympics. Well, methylation is like that and it’s like this sparkplug passing of the torch from molecule to molecule and it’s very important in the biochemistry of the body, because it keeps production going and it keeps toxic waste from accumulating. For example, one called homocysteine, which you may have heard of, which is getting a lot of press recently, because it’s a risk factor for heart disease and stroke and I talk, also, in Natural Cures about how to bring homocysteine down. It’s very easy to do, but that’s something that even conventional doctors are beginning to pay attention to, your homocysteine levels. It’s a very, very telling and important blood measure. Well, homocysteine is a byproduct of not having enough methylation, not having enough of this relay race kind of sparkplug action going. SAMe is basically a methyl donor. It basically comes and says this guy didn’t make it to the relay race in time. Here’s the torch, an extra torch for you. Here’s an extra torch for you. It keeps the torch going and keeps the waste product of homocysteine from accumulating and in doing so keeps a lot of metabolic processes going smoothly. It has a profound effect on depression. It has a profound effect on arthritis. It has a profound effect on the liver and it has a profound effect on fibromyalgia. Those are the four conditions that it’s been used for it and there is considerable research on SAMe and depression and SAMe and arthritis and some on SAMe and liver disease and some anecdotal stuff on fibromyalgia, but this whole methylation process, which again, is way boring and way into the depths of biochemistry that nobody’s interested in and nobody wants to talk about, but basically the take on all this is that SAMe contributes to this metabolic process that’s involved in pain reduction, depression reduction, liver detoxification and that’s why it’s such a useful supplement.

Kevin:

We’ve been talking about supplements this whole time, but there are actually just foods. We don’t have any time to deal with four or five, but maybe you could just pick one that you think is just a great food. You also have the book, 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth.

Jonny:

I’d use that as a reference in the food section.

Kevin:

Right.

Jonny:

Let’s just throw the book like the I ching and see where it opens; celery. Four sticks of celery will lower blood pressure.

Kevin:

Wow.

Jonny:

Four sticks of celery a day will lower blood pressure. Maybe not as much as a drug, but you add that to some of the other things, for example, that I talk about and again, you have to understand, I guess the take home thing about Natural Cures and the point I continue to try to make in the book, The Most Effective Natural Cures on Earth, is natural edicine, nutritional medicine, the medicine of food, the medicine of spirituality, of some of the techniques I talked about, like reflexology and things like that, they’re never met to exist in a vacuum. They’re not in the model of, ‘Doc, I’ve got a headache. Give me a pill.’ It goes away. They’re not in that model. That’s not the model that they work in. They work synergistically. They work as if it takes a village. It takes a program to heal someone. In the same way, so celery, yes, celery will lower blood pressure a few points. Now, if you add to that some magnesium, some fish oil and a couple of other things, a few other changes in the diet, you can bring your blood pressure down. Maybe a little stress management, maybe a little meditation, maybe a little bit of the deep breathing exercises that I talk about in Natural Cures. Put these things together and all of a sudden you’ve got a program. All of a sudden, you don’t need blood pressure medication. So it’s not that one of these things by themselves takes the place of a strong pharmaceutical drug. We can’t compete with that stuff. That stuff works instantaneously. It’s fast, but there is a cost to those drugs, a huge cost to those drugs. If I have a point of view about any of this, it’s not that it’s anti- medicine. It’s just that I think we’re better off taking as little medication as we can get away with. Not that we should never take it. Not that it doesn’t save lives, but when I was in private practice people would come in. I had one very famous composer whose songs there is no one listening to this would not know. It’s a household name. He died recently. He came in at age 70 with a crippling gate, tremors and he had a list of medications he was on that was like a full page of one of those yellow lined pads that took up the full page.

Kevin:

Wow.

Jonny:

Each doctor had given him something for blood pressure, but not looked at the stuff he was on for cholesterol and the cholesterol guy hadn’t looked at what he was taking for depression and the depression guy hadn’t looked at the stuff he was on for sleep and he was on these 19 different medications. My point of view is, if you cannot do that, it’s probably a good thing and not that there aren’t medications that save lives and that once while we need them, but there are natural things that you can do that the body knows how to handle and knows what to do with. Our bodies know what to do with vitamin B12. I’m not so sure that we know what to do with Prozac.

I’m not so sure we know what to do with a standard drug. They may have benefits, but they’re not things that are naturally found in our diets. Why not start with the stuff that’s right there in nature that you could pluck, or gather, or fish, or hunt, or grow and things that are made from those and nutrients that come from them and maybe are delivered through supplement, or herbs, or sometimes through foods, or whatever? Why not start with that and see if you can heal it mustering all these amazing properties the body has to heal itself and then start there and then if you get stuck, you can always go to medicine.

Kevin:

I think that’s a great point and I think that’s a great way to end this call.

Jonny:

Thank you.

Kevin:

What I’ve done with Jonny is provided you a link that you can go and follow and learn more about him and get his awesome book. Like I said, I keep it on my desktop now as a reference when I’m writing or working with people. It’s simple to use and a valuable tool to have for any health enthusiast, or health practitioner. I really appreciate you sharing it with me here.

Jonny:

Oh, it has been an absolute pleasure. You are a great interviewer. I hope that people have gotten something out of this that maybe inspires them to do something for their health like I did for mine 20 years ago and really, I can’t recommend it highly enough. It changes your life.

About the Author: To read the rest of this transcript as well as access The Healthiest Year of Life experts just like Jonny Bowden please

click here!

Kevin Gianni is an internationally recognized health advocate, author & film consultant. He has helped thousands of people take control of their own health naturally. For more information visit

raw food diets and holistic nutrition

.

Source:

isnare.com

Permanent Link:

isnare.com/?aid=255378&ca=Wellness%2C+Fitness+and+Diet

25
Dec

Ten-year-old computer glitch prevents delivery of 1,380 Canadian health results

   Posted by: Admin    in Uncategorized

Sunday, May 24, 2009

The Saskatoon Health Region in Saskatchewan, Canada recently discovered a fax machine problem which had not relayed almost 1,500 X-rays, Computed tomography (CT) and Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans, ultrasounds, and other medical imaging test results to doctors.

The fax machine is part of the automated Radiology Information System. An audit revealed that medical diagnostic tests involving results dating back a decade have been affected by the broken fax machine.

On May 6, a doctor called the health region officials seeking follow up on a patient’s report. Staff who delved into it, found that the report was not sent from the system.

Now, two weeks later, this same patient has still not been contacted by the health region.

“It has taken some time to work with the patient’s physician. That was important — to get more information and more detail because we want that patient’s physician to be involved in the discussion with the patient,” Dr. David Poulin, vice-president of medical affairs for The Saskatoon Health Region, said. “This is a system error and that’s just what it was — an error. This doesn’t reflect in any way on the quality of work regional staff have done and continue to do.”

An internal review revealed that, of 2.2 million diagnostic tests performed, at least 1,380 had not been sent out by the malfunctioning fax machine.

The health region will embark on contacting each of the 1,380 patients and their physicians to make sure that the results have been received and if any health care was compromised.

Patients can also contact the health region via a newly set up hotline to make enquiries.

“We think it would actually be good practice if physician offices could have a system to check whether they have received important reports,” said Poulin, “The common practice appears to be in many doctors’ offices, particularly family physician offices, that they don’t respond to the report until it arrives. So, they basically are waiting for the report to arrive in their office by fax and it’s at that point that they look at it and decide what action to take.”

City Hospital, St. Paul’s Hospital and Royal University Hospital were the three city hospitals affected. Saskatoon has a population of roughly 233,923, and the hospitals also serve the surrounding rural areas.

Ironically the faulty fax machine was discovered the same week that provincial medical officials began to review approximately 70,000 radiology tests conducted in Yorkton. Officials there doubt the competence of the physician who first interpreted the radiology results.

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Ten-year-old_computer_glitch_prevents_delivery_of_1,380_Canadian_health_results&oldid=826425”
24
Dec

GitHub blocks public access to youtube-dl after RIAA issues DMCA notice

   Posted by: Admin    in Uncategorized

This article mentions the Wikimedia Foundation, one of its projects, or people related to it. Wikinews is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation.

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.

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