When Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs first came out, hackers worked on trying to discover a way to copy them to their computers for backing up, and so that they could be converted to other mediums like the iPod, eventually they discovered a special key that, that when used correctly, allowed them to break any sort of copyright protection on the disk and copy the movie to their computer. They posted this key “09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0” and immediately started getting cease and desist letters from the Motion Picture Association of America and its partners. The community reacted in disgust, that an organization could attempt to claim to own a series of numbers and letters, so they revolted. By integrating this number into various songs, T-Shirts, comments, and pretty much anywhere else they could post it. This video stars one of the owners of the site Digg.com where much of this revolt took place along with a few other familiar faces in technology podcasts. And was released at the pinnacle of this revolt and was spread purposefully to get the key into the public’s eye and further water down any claims that the MPAA had a right over this string of characters. The community used the concept of collective intelligence against the MPAA, who mistakenly thought that by forcing censorship of information they would be able to stop the spread. By making a conscience effort to integrate this key into many types of Internet media, in many different ways, it gained a new meaning, and became a symbol of revolt against aging copyright laws. Beginning with a small group of individual hackers, they were able to gain anonymity by using the masses. Instead of hackers changing their identity to hide from the MPAA, those who supported them changed theirs, to the point in which the MPAA no longer could point their fingers at anyone. It was a real life, modern day, “No, I am Spartacus” situation. Eventually the MPAA gave up and just changed the key on future disks.

-Will Weinsoff