Storm Over Antipiracy Code Lifts, for Now

It's been a little more than 24 hours since outraged Digg users, in defiance of site administrators, peppered the Digg home page—and the Web, really—with a secret code that revealed the copy-protection schemes of HD DVD discs. Now that dust has settled (for now, at least) it's unclear who, if anyone, has won.

The storm hit with full fury on Tuesday night, as testy Diggers posted the 32-digit code over and over on the site, while Digg administrators, hit with cease-and-desist letters from the movie industry, furiously deleted the posts. Finally, Digg founder Kevin Rose announced that he was lifting the ban, explaining that the loyalty of Digg users was more important than the legal repercussions of publishing the code.

As the New York Times has pointed out, the HD DVD antipiracy code has been floating around the Web since February, and it's not like just anyone can grab the code and start copying HD DVD discs—you'd need some pretty serious technical chops to do it. But news of the cease-and-desists letters hit Digg on Tuesday, and as Digg's lawyers advised site admins to delete any posts containing the code, Digg users went nuts over the censorship, posting message after message with the forbidden numbers (no, they're not the same numbers from "Lost").

Now that the Digg ban has been lifted and the site has returned to normal (more or less), where does that leave us? If you're wondering if the uproar has any effect on your decision on whether to buy HD DVD or Blu-ray, relax—this is a free speech vs. corporate rights issue. For the movie studios intent on protecting themselves against piracy, it looks like their cease-and-desist letters have backfired—that 32-digit code is now everywhere. Clearly, trying to suppress information on the Web has become an exercise in futility. Digg got caught in the middle, and while it finally decided to stand by its users, the initial decision to censor the posts cost the site dearly in terms of lost trust. As for the users themselves? Well, they've won this round, but the movie industry may well take the RIAA approach and take action again Digg—as well as any other site—that had the audacity to post the code. While defiant users may have safety in numbers—think "I'm Sparticus!"—that didn't stop the RIAA from suing thousands of file sharers, and according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the movie studios may have a case. Let's hope cooler heads prevail.

Oh, and what about that HD DVD copy-protection code that started the whole thing? Well, use it while you can, because the code won't work with the latest HD DVD discs anyway.

Related:
In Web Uproar, Antipiracy Code Spreads Wildly [The New York Times]
09 f9: A Legal Primer [Electronic Frontier Foundation]
Digg CEO: I stand by Kevin [CNNMoney.com]