“If you try to stick up for what you have a legal right to do, and you're somewhat worse off because of it, that's an interesting concept." Michael Avery, Toshiba attorney, on failure to censor stories with code: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0.
"If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying." Kevin Rose, Digg.com founder.
Internet ‘Mob’ Digs Up Movie Code Gold
Defies Hollywood and Digg.com Censors
Digg.com is a web site that allows readers to decide which story leads the page and which ones are buried. On Tuesday (May 1, 2007) the readers rebelled and revived a series of stories that had been killed by www.digg.com staff.
The confrontation began when lawyers representing movie studios and other entertainment companies tried to get stories buried about a secret hacker code that permits copying of high-definition digital video disc (HD-DVD) and Blue-ray Disc (BD) movies.
The code is: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0.
Kevin Rose, founder of Digg.com, had originally instructed his staff to delete the stories that made reference to the censored code number. He said he feared an expensive lawsuit would shut down his 3-year-old company. But after thousands of the 1.2 million registered Digg.com readers complained, Rose reversed course.
“But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear,” Rose wrote on his blog. “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.”
Hollywood lawyers aren’t sure how to respond to the online rebellion, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday (May 3, 2007).
Michael Avery is a Toshiba Corporation attorney who manages the encryption consortium that threatened Digg.com with a lawsuit. In an interview with the Times he declined to discuss his next move, Times staff writers Alex Pham and Joseph Menn wrote in their front page story.
“If you try to stick up for what you have a legal right to do, and you're somewhat worse off because of it, that's an interesting concept," Avery was quoted as saying.
The Times staffers also quoted Forrester Research analyst Josh Bernoff, who monitors Digg.com, as saying: “When you hand the keys over to the mob, they'll drive wherever they want to go.”
The hacker code story was still alive on Digg.com on Thursday (May 3, 2007). One reader posted a notice that the movie industry had changed the secret code, so any movie on HD-DVD or Blue-ray printed after April 23, 2007, could not be copied with the 09 F9 code (read it here). Other readers claimed a new code would be found within weeks.
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