John brought this up on Cranky Geeks the other day. Just figured I’d update folks on the latest from the DRM-Dolts.
Bloggers “crossed the line” when they posted a software key that could break the encryption on some HD-DVDs, the AACS copy protection body has said.
Tsk, tsk.
A row erupted on the internet after popular website Digg began taking down pages that its members had highlighted were carrying the key. The website said it was responding to legal “cease and desist” notices from the Advanced Access Content System.
Digg’s users responded by posting ever greater numbers of websites with the key, and the site eventually sided with its users.
Michael Ayers, chair of the AACS business group, said tracking down everyone who had published the keys was a “resource intensive exercise”. A search on Google shows almost 700,000 pages have published the key.
With the same mentality as the RIAA, my guess is that these killer klowns will probably pick out several prominent blogs and sue their butts for publishing the key – presuming everyone else will run and hide. All their problems will go away. God will smile on NEC, Toshiba, blah, blah, blah.
This is one of those stories JCD tends to make a bigger deal that it really is. In the current model, first on Cranky Geeks, then in PCMag.
At the end of the day, there’s no such thing as illegal knowledge, only the illegal application of knowledge. Because of this, the story… and the AACS… is going nowhere.
They’ll never root it out completely, as there are many ways of publishing it without saying directly “09 F9 etc etc”.
Like T-Shirts, JPG files, color schemes, ASCII equivalents.
Like { ZERO NINE, FOXTROT NINE }
My fav is the LolCat with the code on http://www.IcanHasCheezeburger.com
http://tinyurl.com/2hmeh4 (hey I don’t want this blog in trouble)
Now, don’t you miss out on LolTrek !!!
http://granades.com/2007/05/02/loltrek/
WE SENDS A CODE ONE ALERT
WE’RE IN UR NCC-1701
CHARMIN’ YOU WIMMIN
Yah, but the kiddies at digg sure seem to get a rise out of it like Oreos in their lunchbox or something.
#1 James, I don’t agree.
This story is taking huge hype proportions, and will be forever remembered like ALL YOUR BASE BELONG TO ME, Bananaphone, YTMND, Sony Rootkit, Nigeria reverse scams, etc.
A classic in the making, capture the imagination of millions. Why not publish the key on your personal blog, just to have the priviledge of receiving a take down notice? Knowing you wasted their time & money?
So I humbly submit that Eideard edit this post’s header and add the key.
// I won’t. Call me chicken 🙂
Regardless of how this all turns out. It was very brave of the anonymous users of Digg to so deliberately risk legal action against the site’s owners.
What would Digg be without its users?
#4
All your keys are belong to us!
LOL
The weirdest part of this story is the DMCA notice being illegal to post because it violates the DMCA.
Hack the planet!
This number has been all over the place, but I have yet to see proof that this number is valid. How will they prove the number violated anything with out having to expose source code or probable trade secrets?
Silly human, the law has nothing to do with logic.
I saw JCD on MSNBC, he’s so pasty white he snowblinded me.
This has to be one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard. Trying to censor the distribution of a number is like trying to wage war on gravity!
Besides I’ve seen the number sequence so many times now I’ve already committed it to memory. What is the AACS going to do give me a lobotomy?
@13
don’t give them any ideas, or thats what they’re next press announcement will be.
Digg is dead to me. See ya.
Why the hell cant legislation be passed banning groups that have acronym’s of 4 or more letters (ie: RIAA, AACS, etc)? And before you call that comment stupid, look at current legislation being passed in House/Senate and see if it meets your judgemental bias.
um….i think the AACS lost the battle on this one.. someone registered that key a few days ago.. now its officially a .com domain name..
i’d pay good money to see the look on the AACS bigwigs faces when they learn about the registration.. -lol
somebody has to do a good cartoon parody of this..
-s
I have a new codename. 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-7b-d8-41-56-c5-64-56-88-c0
#4 – I enjoyed your reply, but my problem with all of this is that it is nothing more than hype to increase hit counts. Hype is not news, and the hype around the hype is not news. There are better things to talk about than this.
What? 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-7b-d8-41-56-c5-64-56-88-c0? Is this a code? Mine, yes, THAT was a code. 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-7b-d8-41-56-c5-64-56-88-c0 is nothing!
Its pretty funny cause bloggers along with most comment systems on the internet take a invulnerability kick on stuff like this.
That would be funny if they could actually get them all in court and watch their faces be the complete opposite of their jubilation online.
Reality is a bitch.
doubtful they can get “Every single blogger” among others
#5. Total agreement. and very mature of many of them to motherf*ck Kevin Rose for trying to enforce digg’s ToS.
quiet a brain trust they have going on over there. the “wisdom of crowds” conclusively (albeit inadvertently) disproved.
#22. that, of course, should be “quite” not “quiet.”
#1 and #19 sure comes across as a stick-in-the-mud twit.
#19, James,
I agree with your logic and your point.
The only right the AACS really has is to revoke the key. They’ve done that. Threats about posting the key are incredibly stupid. I’m awaiting my revocation letter any day now.
I haven’t been on msnbc for a decade