The day the users revolted (09 f9 11 02 9d 74 e3 5b d8 41 56 c5 63 56 88 c0)

A few months ago, the HD-DVD encryption key which prevents high-definition DVD's from being copied was cracked.

Not long after, it was circulated amongst various netzines. A few days ago, the key, 09 f9 11 02 9d 74 e3 5b d8 41 56 c5 63 56 88 c0, a 32-digit hexadecimal number was posted to digg.com, one of the most popular sites on the internet.

Initially, digg's administrators began deleting stories that link to sites that contain the key due to a cease and desist declaration from an anti-piracy consortium that protects intellectual property rights and high-definition copy protection. Some users even had their digg accounts banned! That, however, wasn't the end of the story!

The users revolted...Posting link after link after link to a myriad of articles containing the key. Users dugg every story of they key they could find and at one point digg's entire front page comprised only stories that in one way or another were related to the key.

Digg received so much traffic that some users even reported getting 404 errors when trying to access the site! digg was forced to finally throw in the towel! Not long after, digg's founder Kevin Rose had this to say:

Today was an insane day. And as the founder of Digg, I just wanted to post my
thoughts…

In building and shaping the site I’ve always tried to stay as hands on as possible. We’ve always given site moderation (digging/burying) power to the community. Occasionally we step in to remove stories that violate our terms of use (eg. linking to pornography, illegal downloads, racial hate sites, etc.). So today was a difficult day for us. We had to decide whether to remove stories containing a single code based on a cease and desist declaration. We had to make a call, and in our desire to avoid a scenario where Digg would be interrupted or shut down, we decided to comply and remove the stories with the code.

But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might
be.

If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying

And so after the revolution, digg's administrators decided to stand by its users and allow the key to be posted on its site once again and the users celebrated a victory!

09 f9 11 02 9d 74 e3 5b d8 41 56 c5 63 56 88 c0

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