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On Wed, 2 May 2007 08:20:37 +0100 "Jonathan Roberts" <jonathan.roberts.uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Has anyone else seen what happened on Digg overnight? Typical mob reaction - some good content, masses of vociferous protests and the odd nut who thinks that s/he can drown the system by annoying the most important people in the whole thing: the community. > They censored a story featuring the HD-DVD key due to a cease and > desist order and the community were really angry: every story on the > front page for hours, if you look back through it goes on for pages is > stuff like "Guy walks on the moon: 09-F...." etc! Just goes to show, once you hit that Send or Submit button there ain't no way of going back. email, digg, blogs, once the story is public it is almost impossible to get it removed from the net. http://www.bugbash.net/comic/53.html True, the key can be changed (and probably already has for new stuff) but the whole idea that a hexadecimal number can be copyrighted, patented or made into some form of property is ludicrous. A number cannot be invented, no number is ever new, nobody owns a number. You can own a representation of a number (as an image etc.), you can own something that is identified via a number (telephone numbers etc.) but the number itself is generic. Otherwise, every calculator on the planet would have to be licenced or destroyed because it is capable of "inventing" the disputed number. It's similar to trademarks, people have trademarked FireFox or Debian or Sky but the use of those words (invented or not) in contexts that are unrelated to the specific meaning covered by the trademark is generic. "The sky is blue" is not a trademark infringement. The error was the original decision by Digg to come over all scared when a meaningless pseudo-legal letter arrived. Just because someone pays a lawyer to send a letter does not mean that the legal issue in question has actually been proved. It is an accusation, not a judgement. -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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