The New Shot Heard Round the World

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Big Media, as represented by the RIAA and MPAA in the states has lost yet again. A little piece of code made it's way onto the internet yesterday. The little piece of code, it turns out, was accidentally published to the internet by the AACS (Advanced Access Content System) and will unlock the copy protections on all HD-DVDs and possibly blue ray discs released to date. The MPAA freaked out and got a cease and desist order against Digg and apparently many others - there are still scattered reports of cease and desist and other such things flying around the internet.

Digg decided, initially, to comply with the court order and deleted posts containing the code. Digg users revolted posting thousands of messages containing the code. Faced with a choice between banning all of it's users and fighting the cease and desist order, Digg founder Kevin Rose decided to 'at least die trying' and stopped deleting the stories.

It should also be pointed out that even if Digg does delete all of the stories it is now appearing in chat rooms, on bulletin boards, in email lists hell, you can already get the code printed on t-shirts, coffee mugs and bumper stickers - the genie is out of the bottle, and the code is out there for anyone who wants it.

One more time for those who haven't caught on yet. The rules for media and copyright have changed. You cannot control the flow of your content anymore. If people want it and you don't make it available they will take it anyway, they will use it how they want to and when they want to, they are going to share it with their friends, and swap files online - and no matter how much time, energy and money you waste on lawsuits and lobbying there is no going back. For every law you lobby for there is an army waiting to oppose it, for every technical protection you implement there are hordes of end users that will work to find a way around it.

For most of the history of media (in terms of television, radio, recording and film this means about 100 years) most media producers wanted an audience, now they seem to be doing everything possible to keep people away from their content. Those media companies and content producers that want to survive are going to have to shift their focus from fighting with their audience to learning to work within the new rules. Those that don't want to survive - just keep doing what you're doing.