Our government has become increasingly willing to sacrifice the rights of its citizens at the altar of corporate greed. As ridiculous as it sounds, even numbers have become “intellectual property” that corporations can claim ownership of. We here at Badmouth think that idea stinks. We want to start a movement, a movement to reclaim personal liberties and decorporatize the laws of our nation.
To that end we have made a flag, a symbol to show support for personal freedoms. Spread it as far and wide as you can. We give this flag away freely, and also give away the rights for people to make similar, derivative works. the colors of the flag are (in hex code format):
#09F911 #029D74 #E35BD8 #4156C5 #635688
The letters “C0″ are added to signify that simply publishing a number is “Crime Zero.”
Spread the word.







































May 1st, 2007 at 5:20 pm
May 1st, 2007 at 8:05 pm
May 1st, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Ummm… the idea of a flag is nice, but yours looks a little too much like the gay rainbow.
May 1st, 2007 at 8:41 pm
This is a genial idea!
May 1st, 2007 at 9:09 pm
May 1st, 2007 at 9:22 pm
Freedom flag
As ridiculous as it sounds, even numbers have become “intellectual property” that corporations can claim ownership
of.
+C0
May 1st, 2007 at 9:47 pm
May 1st, 2007 at 10:29 pm
May 1st, 2007 at 10:30 pm
May 1st, 2007 at 10:43 pm
I made it better.
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t194/spydermann/free_speech.png
It’s an icon. The image is known as the “Glider” (see http://www.catb.org/hacker-emblem/ for more details).
What the flag says is, “speech wants to be free. It is NOT crime zero”.
May 1st, 2007 at 10:44 pm
May 1st, 2007 at 11:15 pm
Um, I think my previous comment got dropped. Anyway,
I improved your flag and made an Icon out of it. Why the dots? It’s the hacker emblem, the glider.
Information wants to be free
May 1st, 2007 at 11:22 pm
May 1st, 2007 at 11:34 pm
May 1st, 2007 at 11:36 pm
May 1st, 2007 at 11:59 pm
SVG version.
http://openclipart.org/people/Frap/Frap_Freedom_flag.svg
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:59 am
May 2nd, 2007 at 3:00 am
[...] free speech flag Badmouth [...]
May 2nd, 2007 at 4:07 am
May 2nd, 2007 at 4:16 am
May 2nd, 2007 at 4:23 am
May 2nd, 2007 at 4:28 am
May 2nd, 2007 at 5:04 am
May 2nd, 2007 at 5:56 am
May 2nd, 2007 at 6:19 am
May 2nd, 2007 at 6:24 am
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:17 am
[...] then, someone has cleverly put together a flag. If you know anything about RGB colors in hexadecimal, you’ll be pleasantly amused, [...]
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:53 am
May 2nd, 2007 at 12:03 pm
Seems to me that every form of information that can be represented by a computer, can be represented as a number. As you’ve shown with your flag, numbers can have visual representations, auditory ones (no doubt the sequence creates a series of tones, if properly translated), and so on. Images, music, text, can all be displayed as numbers or strings of numbers.
Any work that can be copyrighted - as long as it can be represented by a computer - can also be represented as a number. In that sense, we’re *already* copyrighting numbers, and have been doing so for decades. In fact, not only do we generally copyright exact numbers, we copyright numbers that are substantially similar to the original one.
For instance, say you have a novel. When converted to text on a computer, it can be seen as one huge number. Changing a few bits here and there wouldn’t generally help you to avoid copyright infringement, because you’d usually only be changing a letter or two, maybe a few words. So not only is the exact representation “owned” or restricted or whatever, so are any number of variations. In fact, in many cases, paraphrases are also limited, in which case the numbers wouldn’t necessarily look anything alike.
That being the case, we need to ask where the information exists - is it solely in the number? No, not really. If I were to write a program, and my compiler produced a sequence of digits that matched the forbidden string, it would not be a violation of copyright. The difference is the context in which the string appears. In a binary for a program, it would be OK; in the context of information concerning breaking security, it would not be OK, and Big Business would have my head were I to make the connection.
We’ve got a comical (and also dangerous) situation here of Big Business trying to get the genie back into the bottle by using legal threats. They won’t work. Once something makes it to the Internet, there is little chance of ever stopping it. Too many people have it already, too many strongly idealistic people who will risk lawsuits and even imprisonment to safeguard freedom of speech. The Internet crosses too many borders into countries where Big Business can’t reach, where copyright laws are ignored or considered unimportant. There is a tradition in Russia called “Samizdat”. During the Soviet era, banned literature was copied and published by dedicated individuals who risked imprisonment or death if they were caught. No doubt there are many in Russia and elsewhere who would be pleased to carry on the tradition.
So they shall. Big Business would do well to reconsider its nonsensical efforts to calm a storm through legislation, and work to ensure they provide quality material at decent prices.
May 2nd, 2007 at 2:29 pm
May 2nd, 2007 at 2:45 pm
Indeed a nice flag. I put in on the desktop, it’s prettier than the pictures from it’s homeland.
May 2nd, 2007 at 3:04 pm
May 2nd, 2007 at 3:37 pm
This is a dumb idea!
May 2nd, 2007 at 3:54 pm
May 2nd, 2007 at 7:16 pm
May 3rd, 2007 at 3:54 am
May 3rd, 2007 at 6:27 am
May 3rd, 2007 at 7:34 am
[...] The free speech flag [...]
May 3rd, 2007 at 11:35 am
May 3rd, 2007 at 11:54 am
May 3rd, 2007 at 12:30 pm
May 3rd, 2007 at 2:36 pm
May 3rd, 2007 at 7:11 pm
For whoever said it looks too much like the gay pride flag: Look at the hex values of the flag. The flag is actually the number itself.
May 4th, 2007 at 7:52 am
May 5th, 2007 at 10:38 am
May 5th, 2007 at 11:34 am
BBSs that allow color signatures work great for this. All you need is a 6+ letter nickname.
See Wikipedia
for one example.
May 5th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
May 5th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
May 5th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
May 6th, 2007 at 10:39 am
May 6th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
[...] have been very cool with the code, if you use the hex values for html colours then you get a nice flag, you can also sing it as a nice ballard. It is probably not work safe, depending on your job, but [...]
May 6th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
May 7th, 2007 at 2:29 am
[...] well as this flag, which represents Free Speech, according to it’s creator, John Marcotte. The colors are in hexadecimal as [...]
May 7th, 2007 at 5:08 am
[...] schreibt: Our government has become increasingly willing to sacrifice the rights of its citizens at the [...]
May 8th, 2007 at 5:19 am
May 8th, 2007 at 6:56 am
Great. I find the colours strangely soothing. Coincidence?
May 8th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
Hmm. A bit like the test screen of my TV.
May 9th, 2007 at 4:03 am
May 9th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
May 10th, 2007 at 2:59 am
May 10th, 2007 at 4:17 am
[...] Free Speech Flag Miry @ 10:22 am [filed under English, Spanish] meneame.net says: [...]
May 10th, 2007 at 4:35 am
May 10th, 2007 at 7:20 am
[...] encontrado por ahí esta bandera, que supuestamente simboliza la libertad de expresión. No lo entiendo, ¡si es una [...]
May 10th, 2007 at 7:53 am
[...] Sehr schön auch die Umrechnung der Hexadezimalzahl in einzelne RGB-Farbwerte, dargestellt als Farb-Fahne (Dank an John von Badmouth): [...]
May 10th, 2007 at 9:35 am
May 10th, 2007 at 10:49 am
Free Speech Flag / La Bandera de la Libertad de Expresión…
Esta es la bandera que se propone usar en blogs y webs como rebeldía ante la lucha de la AACS contra la difusión del número de 128 bits en hexadecimal 09:F9:11:02:9D:74:E3:5B:D8:41:56:C5:63:56:88:C0 que sirve para desencriptar los HD-DVD. La bandera…
May 10th, 2007 at 11:46 am
[...] [...]
May 10th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
May 10th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
May 10th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
May 10th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
May 10th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
May 11th, 2007 at 5:57 am
[...] verbotene Zahl gibt es auch als Farbfahne, als ogg-Datei, auf Basis 16, als Binärcode, kleine Rechenaufgabe, auf Japanisch und als [...]
May 14th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
May 14th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
May 15th, 2007 at 10:20 am
May 15th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
[...] Thank you for taking the history lesson. But wait, don’t go home empty-handed! Buy a souvenir T-shirt! Print out a Free Speech flag! [...]
May 18th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:47 pm
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:21 pm
May 29th, 2007 at 1:29 am
May 29th, 2007 at 11:47 am
May 29th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
transformers movie preview: optimus prime…
I am certainly a transformers movie preview: optimus prime dominican here in los angeles so it would be a principal if there were other displaced dominicans in the bayou….
May 31st, 2007 at 9:58 am
July 9th, 2007 at 3:51 am
August 5th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
September 10th, 2007 at 10:04 am
September 12th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
[...] Sehr schön auch die Umrechnung der Hexadezimalzahl in einzelne RGB-Farbwerte, dargestellt als Farb-Fahne (Dank an John von Badmouth): [...]
September 15th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
September 21st, 2007 at 4:18 am
October 30th, 2007 at 7:00 am
[...] read more | digg story [...]
January 16th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
February 6th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
April 4th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
May 6th, 2008 at 10:56 am
[...] man kann den schlüssel auch als farbcode darstellen [...]
May 14th, 2008 at 7:58 am