Digg founder, Kevin Rose: we'll go down fighting if that's what you want
Over the last 24 hours all hell broke loose on the social news site Digg. After a user submitted a story containing the encryption code needed to crack HD-DVDs -- which by most interpretations is illegal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) -- Digg received a take down notice from the copyright holder. In order to stay the right side of the law the story was pulled from Digg's database. But it didn't end there.
Feeling that they'd been censored, Digg users rebelled, posting hundreds of submissions containing the code -- with some accusing Digg of selling out as the company company's founders have a commercial affiliation with HD-DVD. Along the way, many users were banned from accessing the site, which only fueled the revolt more.
Finally, faced with such user backlash and the prospect of Digg losing its credibility with its core users (who hold the DMCA in very low regard), Kevin Rose (Digg's founder) announced a change of heart:
... 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.
I find this extraordinary on a number of levels.
Digg is willing to face a costly legal battle (which I'm not sure they'd win) in order to appease a portion of their user-base -- even though it clearly states in the site's term of service that users need to comply with the law (the DMCA in this case).
The power that the users of Digg have (or any social news site that relies purely on submissions and user voting) is huge. This could easily happen again, on Digg or elsewhere.
How will Digg's funders feel about Kevin Rose effectively inviting prosecution?
And finally, I think this was very badly handled by Digg's management in the first place. If they'd published the take down notice from the makers of HD-DVD, then submitted it to Digg -- I'd bet that most of the anger would have been directed towards the MPAA and/or the makers of HD-DVD. It's ironic that the leading social news site doesn't appear to understand how to leverage social media effectively.
From reading the latest comments left on Digg, it looks like Kevin Rose's commitment to go down fighting has won over users -- but at what price?
Watch this space.