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HD-DVD key fiasco is an example of 21st century digital revolt
Cory Doctorow's class blog for his USC course, "Pwned: How everyone on campus is a copyright criminal" was served a DMCA takedown notice and, on the advice of counsel, removed the offending digits. They were posted to Wikipedia, then removed and locked from reposting. Then the diggstorm came. A slew of digg stories containing the forbidden digits have been posted, made the front page and been removed, only to start again.
Witness the modern equivalent of the 95 thesis' Martin Luther nailed to the door of Wittenburg church. We, digital citizens --commonly referred to by the vulgar term of 'consumers' -- have had enough of content lock-in. We've bought and re-bought entertainment media -- repackaged and regurgitated digital vomitus -- until we're blue in the face. We've been told time and time again that DRM is for our own protection, and we're finally and inconsolably fed up.
As Joe Rogan's character on Newsradio once quite accurately quipped, "Dude, you can't take something off the Internet.. that's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool." The content providers have attempted to do exactly that, remove pee from the proverbial swimming pool that is the Internet and, as we've witnessed so many times before, they've failed miserably.
The bottom line remains, we as consumers, want our content free (as in Freedom) and if we don't get it, we'll take our content free (as in beer).
Comments
28
Subscribe to commentsDannyMay 1st 2007 5:08PM
"The bottom line remains, we as consumers, want our content free (as in Freedom) and if we don't get it, we'll take our content free (as in beer)"
Hahhahhaa! Wonderful!
SamMay 1st 2007 6:23PM
I even got deleted and blocked from digg just because I posted a story about digg deleting the HD DVD key story!
Read the full story here http://mirror.sam-network.com
HexCodeMay 1st 2007 6:57PM
eCard of the Number (3rd ecard on the page)
http://www.brainwrench.com/ecards/categories/protest.php
DeMarkoMay 1st 2007 7:39PM
it's true, and bonus points for NewsRadio reference
VoodishMay 2nd 2007 1:48PM
Love the Artwork
Will DIGG get DUGG as a result of all this?
http://www.voodish.co.uk/articles/is-digg-going-to-be-dugg/
Nigel StewartMay 1st 2007 7:59PM
I was banned from digg as well. What is going on with our once great online culture?
Original post here:http://www.nigelstewart.org/archives/2007/05/digg_has_messed.html
Joe MetzgerMay 1st 2007 9:30PM
Amazing. Digg exists because of the users on the site. You would think they would take care and not get themselves in this situation.
If one day the users were to up and leave to somewhere that respects and appreciates them, well, Digg would only have themselves to blame.
LeeMay 1st 2007 10:22PM
Message #2 is precisely the reason why I am angry with digg. This is NOT the first time they have done this to users where they ban anyone that questions their authority and lack of judgment. They had pulled this crap time and time again and it totally went under the radar because not enough people cared. This time it bit them in the ass, and they were LONG OVERDUE for this. I hope the site never recovers from this. Digg is a farce.
MrfreezieMay 1st 2007 10:39PM
I cannot believe you mentioned news radio. I was watching a season of that today, and I heard that "that's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool." I was laughing pretty hard at that. But then to see it again is weird.
Great, great, great article. This man deserves a raise.
Adam Jacob MullerMay 1st 2007 10:57PM
0x09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
titanMay 3rd 2007 12:20PM
I sort of agree with what you have said. I wrote an article on the digg revolt and how it can be paralleled to society as a whole.
http://titanmiller.no-ip.org/anewera.html
apMay 2nd 2007 2:09AM
Anyone read the digg blog lately? :D
http://blog.digg.com/?p=74
The community has spoken.
RizalMay 2nd 2007 8:30PM
www.hypesphere.com the only new place for freedom of speach
k.rMay 2nd 2007 9:24AM
I think stuff like this has been happening increasingly more since the transfer of ownership of youtube to google. I can't believe how many sites out there are now streaming movies and television shows.... I think people are starting to spit in the face of corporations and basically saying, we don't want your format we want media digitally delivered to us.
Racetrack-OwnerMay 2nd 2007 10:45AM
The slashdot posting on this topic made an extremely interesting (and unusually salient) point: they're essentially trying to censor a number. It's pretty amazing when you consider it in those terms. Here is the article:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/01/1935250
Some of the commentary was quite good too. Many people are posting other numbers that can be used to derive the key. Are these also DMCA violations?
Aside: Technically Martin Luther never actually nailed anything to the church door. In those days monks and other scholarly types posted their arguments on a public bulletin board, signifying their preparedness to defend their position. This is where Luther posted his condemnation of the Papacy. A very entertaining book on general medieval history is "A World Lit Only By Fire." Highly recommended even if you're not normally into history.
agotMay 2nd 2007 12:11PM
The revolt worked - and it looks like you can commemorate the uprising with a t-shirt, LOL. Isn't there a tech conference coming up we should all wear this to? http://www.cafepress.com/saggingsquirrel
agotMay 2nd 2007 12:17PM
The revolt worked - and it looks like you can commemorate the uprising with a t-shirt, LOL. Isn't there a tech conference coming up we should all wear this to? http://www.cafepress.com/saggingsquirrel
VoodishMay 2nd 2007 2:33PM
^^^
I posted that yesterday, but it didn't arrive here until today, doesn't really have any relevance today, this article is more up to date:
http://www.voodish.co.uk/articles/what-does-the-future-hold-for-digg/
Even that is a bit old now too, sorry
Cheers
Dan.
JamesMay 2nd 2007 1:52PM
Heh. Excellent. This is perhaps the most concise summary of the reason DRM cannot and will not ever work -- 16 bytes. Can anybody beat that?
Somebody needs to team up with one of those start-ups that turns email into snail-mail free/ad-sponsored, and get people sending thousands upon thousands of postcards with just these numbers on them to the upper-ups of the RIAA. It should be like that scene in the first Harry Potter movie. Man, that would be awesome.
Chris CareyMay 2nd 2007 3:33PM
Can the Digg mob stop the War in Iraq?
With the Digg mob standing up to the DCMA it made me think...If hundreds of thousands of people can see when something is wrong and stand up for our rights in regards to freedoms of speech when it comes to HD-DVD backup & archive why couldn ’t that same power of the people be harnessed to send a clear message to congress on the War in Iraq?
http://www.digg.com/world_news/Can_the_Digg_mob_stop_the_War_in_Iraq#c6473676