“Attempts to gag the blogosphere from publishing details of a DVD crack have led to a user revolt,” The BBC reports.
“The row centred on a ‘cease and desist’ letter sent by the body that oversees the digital rights management technology on high-definition DVDs,” The Beeb reports.
The Beeb reports, “It requested that blogs and websites removed details of a software key that breaks the encryption on HD-DVDs.”
“The removal of the information from community news website Digg was a step too far for its fans,” The Beeb reports.
The Beeb reports, “As quickly as stories relating to the issue were removed, they were re-submitted in their thousands, in an act described by one user as a ’21st century revolt.’ The site collapsed under the weight of the attack at one point.”
Full article here.
Digg founder Kevin Rose responded in a post titled, “Digg This: 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0,” writing:
Today was an insane day. And as the founder of Digg, I just wanted to post my thoughts…
In building and shaping the site I’ve always tried to stay as hands on as possible. We’ve always given site moderation (digging/burying) power to the community. Occasionally we step in to remove stories that violate our terms of use (eg. linking to pornography, illegal downloads, racial hate sites, etc.). So today was a difficult day for us. We had to decide whether to remove stories containing a single code based on a cease and desist declaration. We had to make a call, and in our desire to avoid a scenario where Digg would be interrupted or shut down, we decided to comply and remove the stories with the code.
But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.
If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “RadDoc” for the heads up.]
“not without a purpose, not without a fight”
-street dogs
“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, except for maybe a lot of pissed off nerds…..”
When will these Copy protection/DRM loving idiots ever learn. Copy protection has only one purpose, and that is for someone out there to break it. It’s always been that way, and it always will be that way.
Last night was so great. The joy!
Let see if digg gets burried
But how will the nerds survive the loss of digg??? Oh, the humanity…
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bravo to kevin rose. way to back your users!! this is why i use the site and watch the podcast, cause he’s one of us!
I’ve always felt like Digg is a bit of a Quirrel to Microsoft’s Voldemort. Have I gotten the wrong impression of them?
wow… Kevin is my hero.
WHY WOULD ANYONE CARE IF DIGG DIES? OF COURSE THEY WANT THEM TO FIGHT.
Normal public is selfish, they dont care about digg, they just want their codes.
High Definition is just another way to sell the same content over again. Using draconian DRM is going to doom both flavors of High Definition.
Releasing the hack into the wild may just save the two formats in spite of the industry’s attempt to kill them at birth.
hey, I know I am evil incarnate, but comparing me to microsoft?? I have to draw the line somewhere.
The Internet…. still (and hopefully always) the great equalizer.
What a night!
Can’t wait till enough idiots demand free bread and gas and clothes. Communism doesn’t work and the people who work hard trying to make money in the hd-dvd business should be able to set the terms for their product.
What a lame move by digg, they caved in to pressure from their users in an attempt to not cave in to pressure from another source. That’s not heroic, just misguided.
the guys at digg should open up their own site ftp info in the spirit of sharing protected codes –
“I’d rather die, than be a toy.”
-nomenasno
I can just picture a bunch of dorks having a rebellion march (million dork march?).
A pitchfork or flaming torch in one hand and a stack of blank Blueray disks in the other.
“We will not be denied our right to steal content!”
Losers
considering how Digg censors other content ( eg Roughly Drafted articles) who give a flying eff what happens to them.
mac user 47 and Thorin are right — These are no doubt mostly Windows losers clamoring for more FREE stuff. Hell, most of the software they buy– err, STEAL — is obviously “free” to them. And now they want all of their Hi-Def content for “free” as well.
Buncha f-ckin’ scumbags. It doesn’t matter if it’s the “big, bad movie studios” or the “evil record companies” from whom you’re stealing, dipshits. STEALING is still STEALING!
For giving in to a rabid mob of cheaters, losers, and thieves, Kevin Rose officially wins the first 2007 Pandering Spineless Douchebag Award.
This is so not about stealing. At all.
It’s about the free flow of information.
C1,
I’m not really polarized on the issue, you may be right. I was kind of using it for a conveyance of humor. I guess what you are saying is that the issue that sparked the censorship is irrelevant. I understand that, but I do question the need for cracking the code. I’m ignorant as to how badly the encryption cripples the portability of the content. Maybe it goes back to the Jobs / DRM situation. If we are entering an era of personal responsibility, then that suits me. The basis of the issue itself, however, just rubs my fur the wrong way. Peace.
ChrissyOne -This is so not about stealing. At all.
It’s about the free flow of information.
What’s your phone no. little one?
I’d like to say one more thing about this: where do you draw the line? What if someone posted an article about how to build a homemade bazooka, or how to coax a 14 year old girl into the back of a van? Does this information really deserve to flow freely?
@ Thorin
I understand. My position on the issue is that DRM is a fundamentally flawed idea, especially when it’s based on secrets. We’ve seen how difficult it has been to unlock the secret of HD DRM, and now the secret is out. There is no putting the cat back in the bag.
It doesn’t matter if the code is posted on Digg or MySpace or on the front page of CNN. It’s now out there for anyone to find and use. So what was the point of having it in the first place? Every duplicator in China can now copy HD DVDs, and a Digg ban certainly can’t stop that.
If it were true, if you really couldn’t make any money from an un-encrypted media storage method, then how come they can still sell CDs? Real Phillips-compliant CDs have never had copy protection, and they’ve been sold for something like 20 years. Why in the world should we believe that movies are somehow special?