[LINK] NYTimes today Re: HD-DVD and Digg/Wik

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

In Web Uproar, Antipiracy Code Spreads Wildly 

By BRAD STONE, Published: May 3, 2007

There is open revolt on the Web.

Sophisticated Internet users have banded together over the last two days 
to publish and widely distribute a secret code used by the technology and 
movie industries to prevent piracy of high-definition movies.

The broader distribution of the code may not pose a serious threat to the 
studios, because it requires some technical expertise and specialized 
software to use it to defeat the copy protection on Blu-ray and HD DVD 
discs. But its relentless spread has already become a lesson in mob power 
on the Internet and the futility of censorship in the digital world.

An online uproar came in response to a series of cease-and-desist letters 
from lawyers for a group of companies that use the copy protection 
system, demanding that the code be removed from several Web sites. 

Rather than wiping out the code — a string of 32 digits and letters in a 
specialized counting system — the legal notices sparked its proliferation 
on Web sites, in chat rooms, inside cleverly doctored digital photographs 
and on user-submitted news sites like Digg.com.

“It’s a perfect example of how a lawyer’s involvement can turn a little 
story into a huge story,” said Fred von Lohmann, a staff lawyer at the 
Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group. “Now that they 
started sending threatening letters, the Internet has turned the number 
into the latest celebrity. It is now guaranteed eternal fame.”

The number is being enshrined in some creative ways. Keith Burgon, a 24-
year-old musician in Goldens Bridge, N.Y., grabbed his acoustic guitar on 
Tuesday and improvised a melody while soulfully singing the code. He 
posted the song to YouTube, where it was played more than 45,000 times.

“I thought it was a source of comedy that they were trying so futilely to 
quell the spread of this number,” Mr. Burgon said. “The ironic thing is, 
because they tried to quiet it down it’s the most famous number on the 
Internet.”

During his work break on Tuesday, James Bertelson, an engineer in 
Vancouver, Wash., joined the movement and created a Web page featuring 
nothing but the number, obscured in an encrypted format that only 
insiders could appreciate. He then submitted his page to Digg, a news 
site where users vote on what is important. Despite its sparse offerings, 
his submission received nearly 5,000 votes and was propelled onto Digg’s 
main page.

“For most people this is about freedom of speech, and an industry that 
thinks that just because it has high-priced lawyers it has the final 
say,” Mr. Bertelson said.

Messages left for those lawyers and the trade organization they 
represent, the Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator, 
which controls the encryption system known as A.A.C.S., were not 
answered. In an e-mail message, a representative for the group said only 
that it “is looking into the matter and has no further comment at this 
time.”

The organization is backed by technology companies like I.B.M., Intel, 
Microsoft and Sony and movie studios like Disney and Warner Brothers, 
which is owned by Time Warner.

The secret code actually stopped being a secret in February, when a 
hacker ferreted it out of his movie-playing software and posted it on a 
Web bulletin board. From there it spread through the network of 
technology news sites and blogs.

Last month, lawyers for the trade group began sending out cease-and-
desist letters, claiming that Web pages carrying the code violated its 
intellectual property rights under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright 
Act. One letter was sent to Google, which runs a blog network at 
blogspot.com. 

The campaign to remove the number from circulation went largely unnoticed 
until news of the letters hit Digg. The 25-employee company in San 
Francisco, acting on the advice of its lawyers, removed posting 
submissions about the secret number from its database earlier this week, 
then explained the move to its readers on Tuesday afternoon.

The removals were seen by many Digg users as a capitulation to corporate 
interests and an assault on free speech. Some also said that the trade 
group that promotes the HD-DVD format, which uses A.A.C.S. protection, 
had advertised on a weekly Digg-related video podcast.

On Tuesday afternoon and into the evening, stories about or including the 
code swamped Digg’s main page, which the company says gets 16 million 
readers each month. At 9 p.m. West Coast time, the company surrendered to 
mob sentiment.

“You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger 
company,” wrote Kevin Rose, Digg’s founder, in a blog post. “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 Digg 
loses, he wrote, “at least we died trying.”

Jay Adelson, Digg’s chief executive, said in an interview that the site 
was disregarding the advice of its lawyers. “We just decided that it is 
more important to stand by our users,” he said. Regarding the company’s 
exposure to lawsuits he said, “we are just going to prepare and do our 
best.”

The conflict spilled over to Wikipedia, where administrators had to 
restrict editing on some entries to keep contributors from repeatedly 
posting the code ...
--

Cheers all ..
Stephen Loosley
Victoria, Australia