Digg Rebellion

Last Thursday I had the pleasure of experiencing the Digg revolt. Digg.com is a website where the users submit and rate content. One user posted a key that cracks HD DVDs. Other users rated it highly, and it eventually made the front page of Digg. Digg subsequently received a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown notice from AACS. The Digg staff decided to remove the offending post to avoid legal retribution from the AACS, and eventually banned the user who posted it because of his repeat attempts to repost it. Users were angered that Digg complied with the DMCA takedown notice because they felt it violated their rights to free speech. The argument was that the key is just a number, one that took no creative input to come up with (all computer programs are just numbers, but there is a minimal requirement of creative input for it to be copywriteable), so it should not be censored from the website. Even if the DMCA covers such content, users felt that a more important law, namely the constitution, guaranteed their right to post a number. All content on Digg comes from user submissions, so censoring those users unfairly, at least from the users' point of view, is not necessarily a good idea.

Digg users revolted against the censorship and posted thousands of references to the number. Eventually, the entire front page of Digg was plastered in references to the key. Digg then issued a statement saying that they had overwhelmingly heard the users voice their opinion, and that they would allow the number to remain on the website and take on the AACS legally if it came to that.

This issue is really a deep one. It touches on several different sore spots in our legal system's relationship with digital media. Can a number be copyrighted? Should a huge company be allowed to crush a small company by pumping lawyers full of money, even if it is a miscarriage of justice? Can and should a website control user submitted content? Why are we allowing cartels (AACS, MPAA) to fix prices and attach arbitrary restrictions to content (DRM)? Why do special interests carry more weight than the voice of the people? Has America become a lawyer state? Why won't America uphold its own constitution?

I don't know the answers to these questions, but I have a sneaking suspicion that greed is the primary reason why these companies do what they do, as well as being the reason that they can get away with it. I am proud of Digg and its users for choosing to stand up for what they believe in, even if it means they will be crushed.