Is there a legal limit to what you can post?

Viacom, copyright Material, etc.

Can user-generated news site that depend on readers to provide the content allow users to release copyrighted material even encryption code?

On Tuesday, Digg had to remove a link to an article containing the the HD DVD encryption key, that programmers can use to crack the copy protection code on the new disc format.

Readers response by voting for links that contained the code and bashed Diggs attempt to remove the link, which overwhelmed the site filters. Eventually Digg founder Kevin Rose gave the go-ahead to post the code in a not posted on the site.

"You've made it clear. You'd rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company."

The encryption codes should be covered by the 1998 Millennium Copyright Act but their are several loopholes.

Now that Digg has caved to its users and allowed them to post the code, attorney Gregory Rutchik of the San Francisco-based Arts and Technology Law Group says the site could be sued by the AACS.

However since the code was already made public for several moths on blogs and other websites including Conde Nast's Wired.com.

The revolt of the readers has completely changed Diggs policy about taking down links according to the executive director Jay Adelson

We usually give the claimants the benefit of the doubt and take things down, thinking that it's better to be safe than sorry," says Adelson.

Now, he says, all of that has changed. "Our users have said that's not good enough," he says. "And we've made a decision to stand with them on this issue."

Beyond the ethical and legal questions that this opens up we also have to look at if their is a legal limit to what you can put on the Internet. Viacom argued that everyday people cross the legal line when they upload a video to YouTube when they decided to sue Google over YouTube clips, for $1 billion.

This also brings up the fact that no matter what the big corporations do their are millions of hackers out their trying to find a way to hack the next encryption key. What is the point of taking legal action to protect a key when it is leaked all over the Internet?

Two weeks ago attorneys for the Advanced Access Copy System used in both Blu-ray and HD DVD sent out out letter to several websites demanding that they remove references to the encryption key.

After this letter was filed and passed around the Internet Hackers started post links on Diggs, slashdot
and any other website that would allow it.

Wired.com is even taking a poll of readers on how long it will take someone to post the new key online after AACS LA updates their HD DVD encryption key. So far 38.2 percent answered less than a month.


I guess they think that no matter what the AACS comes up with the encryption key will end up on a website somewhere in a matter of months. As hackers around the world work together to open up this new technology to everyone.
Maybe that is one good thing about the Internet. It is almost impossible for anyone to regulate what you can and cannot post on the Internet. So the speed with which copyrighted material and encryption code ends up on the Internet makes any legal action that big corporations take almost irrelevant.