Digg takes on DCMA

The moment anyone hears of DCMA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) one suspects some issue related with copyright infringement. In 1998 the United States Senate passed this bill unanimously which criminalizes the production and dissemination of technology, devices &/or services that are used to circumvent measures that control access to copyrighted material. So in short it tries to control any method that can be used to illegally share copyrighted material.

Just recently someone discovered the hex keyneed to descramble the encryption on the HD-DVD disc allowing anyone to copy the DVD onto ones hard drive, this has the MPAA (Movie Picture Association of America) up in arms, sending cease and desist letters to sites that even link to page that displays the hex key. If you are a little adventurous then you can too also have a crack at using the utility called BackupHDDVD a simple Google search will find you the link

Discovering these types of hack is not a new concept and has been an ongoing battle ever since the creation of the Internet as literally millions of crackers publish these hack codes on underground network sites trying to remain hidden away without getting a lawsuit shoved down their throats.

But this time around a few eager fellows decided to use the Digg.com social network for spreading this information. Digg.com is generally strictly controlled by its administrator for any such copyright infringement issue and they are quick to delete any item which may harbor close to copyright infringement. The onslaught started a day or so back with a few Diggers submitting these stories but were quickly deleted by the administrators, this irked the digg community and very soon the number of submissions kept of increasing to an extent it went completely out of control were able to control the submissions but very soon these got out of control as literally hundred of users continued to pound the site with this crack code. For sometime the administrators withstood the storm but how could they continue to fight against their own community and ultimately Kevin Rose succumbed to the pressure and issued a statement on the Digg Blog

Today was an insane day. And as the founder of Digg, I just wanted to post my thoughts

In building and shaping the site Ive always tried to stay as hands on as possible. Weve 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, youve made it clear. Youd rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we wont 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.

Digg on,

Kevin

I feel this was bound to happen since there have been a number of skirmishes with the online community, DCMA has now just taken a fight with the movers and shakers of the online community which has millions of members who can be termed as hardcore technology users. This is going to make history and not in any small way since lawsuits are definitely going to be involved in a big way and it might even (hopefully) result in creating a reform in the copyright laws which govern the Internet, its sad but the MPAA and RCA try to control the Internet in a very pathetic way.

I fully support the digg-revolution and feel DCMA does not have the right to block free flow on information, they can go after the actual violators when and if they copy these DVDÅ› but definitely not pursue these types of Internet sites when they publish stories like these. Digger Rock on


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2 responses to “Digg takes on DCMA”

  1. shobz Avatar

    it’s funny how we ended up reading the same stuff. I was reading the same article about Digg’s take on DCMA. I dont think they are doing anything wrong here. I dont think anyone has the right to censor stuff on the net.

  2. Asad Avatar

    I dugg this a day or two back but never looked back. Wonderful things seem to have happened while I wasn't looking!!!