Over the past months, the Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator (AACS LA) - the entity which controls the AACS copy protection system used in HD-DVDs and Blu-Ray disks – has been trying to stop people from republishing an alphanumeric cryptographic key that can unlock a faction of the marketed discs. Their actions, however, reached a wider audience when a popular social news site (www.digg.com) that aggregates web page recommendations from its users, received a “cease and desist” letter from the AACS demanding the immediate take down of links (in the form of recommendations) that contained the key.

While the site administrators complied and started removing content and banning users from posting the key, their attempts were perceived by the site’s 1 million members as an act of censorship: the users responded by posting an even greater number of websites and comments containing the key, resulting in submissions showing up faster than the ability of the administrators to cancel them. After one day and facing a massive denial of service (DoS), the administrators publicly declared that they will no longer take down stories containing the key.

The apparent moral of the story is that, given the present internet architecture, information cannot be restrained (a recent search on Google reveals more that 1,6 million sites containing the key…). However, a more critical reading to the cause of this “user revolt” should focus on the potential abuses in the established copyright legislation that may stifle innovation and freedom of expression on the internet. While it is obvious why the creator or performer of a song should deserve some special claim over the use of his creation, it is difficult to comprehend why a private company should be able to randomly pick numbers and declare ownership on them. Arguing that the company’s right is based solely on copyright / anti-circumvention legislation lacks the moral justification which is needed to convince the tech-savvy members of online communities.

Nikos Volanis – Legal researcher at Interdisciplinary Centre for Law and ICT (ICRI), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven