Revolution

The French had theirs. We had one. Che Guevara even tried it.

Now, people like this are taking a shot.

Yes, the sweaty-palmed, 18-35 year-old crowd known as Digg is revolting. I won't give all the nasty details, but essentially, a 32 digit hexadecimal code used to protect HD DVD's from being copied has made its way onto the internet.

I don't think many people would know what the hell to do with the code even if it came bundled with software, but the "Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator LLC" (some kind of copyright company?) has been contacting Web site admins and demanding the code be removed.

This is where it gets awesome. Digg.com, the site everyone knows about- and a site I have come to loathe- is sponsored by HD DVD. So when users started posting stories with the code,Digg admins removed the stories, and some say, even deleting accounts.

The Digg community has responded. As of about 12:30 am, the front page was plastered with the code. Earlier this afternoon, one of Digg's co-founders blogged about the repercussions of posting "the code".



Will they remove everything with the code? Will they delete a metric ass-load of user accounts? I don't know, but I'm happy to see the ethical battle. Digg gave users the unwieldy powers of autonomy and democracy and now the big test is here. Voting down someone's comments was an interesting "Web 2.0" concept, but facing a virtual revolution is even more impressive.

Yes, this is blatant copyright infringement, but watching the online community respond will be awesome.

*update: it's 1:44 a.m. and digg.com is responding with a 404.