[Infowarrior] - How a Number Became the Latest Web Celebrity

[Richard Forno]

May 3, 2007
How a Number Became the Latest Web Celebrity
By BRAD STONE
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/03/technology/03code.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogi
n&pagewanted=print

SAN FRANCISCO, May 2 ‹ There is open revolt on the Web.

Sophisticated Internet users have banded together over the last two days to
publish and widely distribute a secret code used by the technology and movie
industries to prevent piracy of high-definition movies.

The broader distribution of the code may not pose a serious threat to the
studios, because it requires some technical expertise and specialized
software to use it to defeat the copy protection on Blu-ray and HD DVD
discs. But its relentless spread has already become a lesson in mob power on
the Internet and the futility of censorship in the digital world.

An online uproar came in response to a series of cease-and-desist letters
from lawyers for a group of companies that use the copy protection system,
demanding that the code be removed from several Web sites.

Rather than wiping out the code ‹ a string of 32 digits and letters in the
specialized counting system ‹ the legal notices sparked its proliferation on
Web sites, in chat rooms, inside cleverly doctored digital photographs and
on user-submitted news sites like Digg.com.

³It¹s a perfect example of how a lawyer¹s involvement can turn a little
story into a huge story,² said Fred von Lohmann, a staff lawyer at the
Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group. ³Now that they
started sending threatening letters, the Internet has turned the number into
the latest celebrity. It is now guaranteed eternal fame.²

The number is being enshrined in some creative ways. Keith Burgon, a
24-year-old musician in Goldens Bridge, N.Y., grabbed his acoustic guitar on
Tuesday and improvised a melody while soulfully singing the code. He posted
the song to YouTube, where it was played more than 45,000 times.

³I thought it was a source of comedy that they were trying so futilely to
quell the spread of this number,² Mr. Burgon said. ³The ironic thing is,
because they tried to quiet it down it¹s the most famous number on the
Internet.²

During his work break on Tuesday, James Bertelson, an engineer in Vancouver,
Wash., joined the movement and created a Web page featuring nothing but the
number, obscured in an encrypted format that only insiders could appreciate.
He then submitted his page to Digg, a news site where users vote on what is
important. Despite its sparse offerings, his submission received nearly
5,000 votes and was propelled onto Digg¹s main page.

³For most people this is about freedom of speech, and an industry that
thinks that just because it has high-priced lawyers it has the final say,²
Mr. Bertelson said.

Messages left for those lawyers and the trade organization they represent,
the Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator, which controls
the encryption system known as A.A.C.S., were not answered. In an e-mail
message, a representative for the group said only that it ³is looking into
the matter and has no further comment at this time.²

The organization is backed by technology companies like I.B.M., Intel,
Microsoft and Sony and movie studios like Disney and Warner Brothers, which
is owned by Time Warner.

The secret code actually stopped being a secret in February, when a hacker
ferreted it out of his movie-playing software and posted it on a Web
bulletin board. From there it spread through the network of technology news
sites and blogs.

Last month, lawyers for the trade group began sending out cease-and-desist
letters, claiming that Web pages carrying the code violated its intellectual
property rights under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Letters
were sent to Google, which runs a blog network at blogspot.com, and the
online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

The campaign to remove the number from circulation went largely unnoticed
until news of the letters hit Digg. The 25-employee company in San
Francisco, acting on the advice of its lawyers, removed posting submissions
about the secret number from its database earlier this week, then explained
the move to its readers on Tuesday afternoon.

The removals were seen by many Digg users as a capitulation to corporate
interests and an assault on their right of free speech. Some also said that
the trade group that promotes the HD-DVD format, which uses A.A.C.S.
protection, had advertised on a weekly Digg-related video podcast.

On Tuesday afternoon and into the evening, stories about or including the
code swamped Digg¹s main page, which the company says gets 16 million
readers each month. At 9 p.m. West Coast time, the company surrendered to
mob sentiment.

³You¹d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company,²
wrote Kevin Rose, Digg¹s founder, in a blog post. ³We hear you, and
effective immediately we won¹t delete stories or comments containing the
code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.² If Digg loses,
he wrote, ³at least we died trying.²

Jay Adelson, Digg¹s chief executive, said in an interview that the site was
disregarding the advice of its lawyers. ³We just decided that it is more
important to stand by our users,² he said. Regarding the company¹s exposure
to lawsuits he said, ³we are just going to prepare and do our best.²

The conflict spilled over to Wikipedia, where administrators had to restrict
editing on some entries to keep contributors from repeatedly posting the
code.

The episode recalls earlier acts of online rebellion against the encryption
that protects media files from piracy. Some people believe that such systems
unfairly limit their freedom to listen to music and watch movies on whatever
devices they choose.

In 1999, hackers created a program called DeCSS that broke the software
protecting standard DVDs and posted it on the hacker site 2600.com. The
Motion Picture Association of America sued, and New York District Court
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, citing the digital copyright act, sided with the
movie industry.

The DVD code disappeared from the 2600 site, but nevertheless resurfaced in
playful haiku, on T-shirts and even in a movie in which the code scrolled
across the screen like the introductory crawl in ³Star Wars.²

In both cases, the users who joined the revolt and published the codes may
be exposing themselves to legal risk. Chris Sprigman, an associate professor
at the University of Virginia School of Law, said that under the digital
copyright act, propagating even parts of techniques intended to circumvent
copyright was illegal.

However, with thousands of Internet users now impudently breaking the law,
Mr. Sprigman said that the entertainment and technology industries would
have no realistic way to pursue a legal remedy. ³It¹s a gigantic can of
worms they¹ve opened, and now it will be awfully hard to do anything with
lawsuits,² he said.