In case you don’t regularly frequent the world of tech-geekery, pay a visit: there’s some crazy shit going down in freedom-of-informationland. Bwog freelancer Kate Redburn summarizes.

sdfdsIt seems Columbia students aren’t the only ones having trouble with copyright law.

Yesterday, there was an internet revolution on Digg.com, the popular website-rating site, over the “digging” of an HD-DVD decryption key (see BBC coverage here). The 32-character key–now the subject of its own facebook group–allows unauthorized access to DVD content, and Digg complied with a request to take down the popular post. They also deleted several accounts which had posted the key. However, the users overrode the site’s administrators, continuing to angrily post the key. The site finally capitulated. In a post to the Digg blog, co-founder Kevin Rose wrote:

“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.”

So far, the Digg community has won. The main page is covered with key pages, and articles related to the incident. Will May 1st be known for something else from now on?