I remember the time when I asked myself where all the men have gone after watching 300. It seems the world today has become so scrupulous that everyone has been “pussy-fied” that they don’t stand up for their beliefs without having a overall idea of the repercussions first.
I’ve seen many people who have become so inconsistent with their principles that they only stick to their guns if they know they can win – other than that, they’d rather play it safe and kiss some ass if need be just to stay in the game. Those people make me sick.
The Spartans on the other hand, put up a good show of sticking to their guns regardless of what fate awaited them.
But today, one of the most popular news sites in the internet, Digg; which has been recently under attack by its very users – for compromising their democratic principles – has finally made a decision.
Founder Kevin Rose had this to say:
Today was an insane day. And as the founder of Digg, I just wanted to post my thoughts…
In building and shaping the site I’ve always tried to stay as hands on as possible. We’ve always given site moderation (digging/burying) power to the community. Occasionally we step in to remove stories that violate our terms of use (eg. linking to pornography, illegal downloads, racial hate sites, etc.). So today was a difficult day for us. We had to decide whether to remove stories containing a single code based on a cease and desist declaration. We had to make a call, and in our desire to avoid a scenario where Digg would be interrupted or shut down, we decided to comply and remove the stories with the code.
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.
Digg on, Kevin
It takes a great amount of testicular fortitude to publicly announce your intention to “fight” behemoths such as the MPAA and RIAA – who individually, have enough clout (and legal war-chests) to sue just for the sake of suing. We all know that for issues such as these, the question isn’t who’s going to win or lose – but how much money will be lost in the process.
Digg is probably the most popular user-driven news site to date – having a code that compromises the copy protection of HD-DVD discs is similar to illegally posting a serial number for the whole world to see. So I’m inclined to believe that the MPAA, RIAA have enough reason to take legal action if they wished. And with Digg’s popularity and influence – it would make a very easy target to get “reparations” from.
From the whole practicality of it all, I personally don’t mind if Digg complied with the cease-and-desist letters. In fact it doesn’t concern me at all since I don’t own an HD-DVD player. But apparently the rest of the users are up in arms about this issue.
I’d say it’s simply bad luck that Digg was put in such a precarious legal position; where they had to choose between being sued into oblivion – or compromising everything their site stood for. I’d hate to be the guy who’s in charge of deciding on that.
While Mr. Rose’s response wasn’t the smartest course of action a company could take (given their responsibilities to their shareholders/investors, etc), I certainly respect his decision to choose principle over business. Digg has chosen to support their users instead of those people who pay their salaries – I just hope the community can do it’s part in supporting the company should the shit hit the fan.
You know what I’d like to know? How much site-hit revenue Digg earned through all this…
Mob turned on itself? Yeah, but Digg got extra earnings in the process.
Digg=getting rich; members=getting nothing. Oh wait, members do get something: digg counts.