This just goes to prove the power of numbers on the Internet. Whether or not you are familiar with it, Hollywood and other studio’s have spent millions of dollars trying to encrypt HD-DVDs to the point where they could not be burnt. Well, about 4 months ago, one person was able to crack this encryption within something like 48 hours. As people celebrated the cracking of the HD-DVD encryption; the studios took another approach - they started sending out emails and threats to publishers of the encrypted code via lawyers.

Big mistake…

Sophisticated Internet users have banded together over the last two days to publish and widely distribute a secret code used by the technology and movie industries to prevent piracy of high-definition movies.

The broader distribution of the code may not pose a serious threat to the studios, because it requires some technical expertise and specialized software to use it to defeat the copy protection on Blu-ray and HD DVD discs. But its relentless spread has already become a lesson in mob power on the Internet and the futility of censorship in the digital world.

An online uproar came in response to a series of cease-and-desist letters from lawyers for a group of companies that use the copy protection system, demanding that the code be removed from several Web sites.[more]

Tags: Piracy