Digg's Mob Rules

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Digg's alliance with the users could prove devastating. About a month before Digg's change of heart, the company received a take-down notice alerting it to the posted code from the Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administration, the copyright protection group backed by such heavyweight tech and media companies as IBM (IBM), Intel (INTC), Microsoft (MSFT), and Disney (DIS). The code could be injected into a DVD player that would then decrypt the HD-DVD discs and allow them to be copied or used to write programs to strip the copy protections from the discs. As such, it was a "circumvention device" and illegal in the view of the AACS and the courts. The AACS declined to comment for this story through a spokesperson. A lawyer listed on the take-down notices for the AACS did not return phone calls.

The legal precedent barring the code was set in a 2000 case, Universal City Studios vs. Reimierds, and upheld on appeal. In that case, 2600 magazine, nicknamed The Hacker Quarterly, published a story in which it included a code that enabled the technically adept to crack DVD copyright protections. The motion picture studios sued for damages as well as an order preventing the publication of the code. They won. "I think that at this point if [Digg] just ignores take-down notices they will probably lose their business over it," says Cory Doctorow, a professor, author, and co-editor of Boing Boing, a blog devoted to culture, art, and digital rights.

Doctorow had a blog for his University of Southern California class, "Pwned: Everyone on campus is a copyright criminal," on which a student posted the code. He received a take-down notice months later and replaced the code with the take-down notice, which conveniently had the code in it. Doctorow believes Digg should also take this tack—preserving the information without "falling on their sword."

Dependent on the Community

Fred von Lohmann, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the firm which tried and lost the 2000 Universal City case, believes that even linking to the numbers at all may be considered a violation. "There is a possibility that you can be sued even if you have no idea it was there," says von Lohmann.

Of course, Digg may have no other choice but to fight for whatever its users want. Digg depends on their participation. If it angers enough of its core users, they may go somewhere else. That not only means no real audience to serve advertising to, it means no real content, period. No articles submitted. No Diggs. Nothing. It can hope to attract a community of like-minded users by advertising its terms of service, but it risks losing any community if it doesn't let the crowd influence—if not outright dictate—what those terms should be.

Despite having his initial account reinstated, Digg user Millisock is looking for another community site that gives its audience more power. "What users are after is a Web site where they can submit stories and just the users can decide what is important," says Millisock. "That is still the ideal."

Holahan is a writer for BusinessWeek.com in New York.