Now I don’t advocate piracy. I do stand up for the right of the consumer to be able to copy their own digital media and use it in whatever way they wish to.

The copy protection on high definition discs makes that very difficult.

This number:

09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0

has caused a LOT of fuss over at Digg.

But Digg is just an aggregation site, responding to what people think is popular and vote on.

This ‘key’ that can be used to crack high definition discs (if you really know what you’re doing – it’s useless to the vast majority of the population) – has drawn a battle line between the heavy handed might of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and Digg.

For all its faults, Digg does not deserve to go down for this.

Digg is not a broadcaster. They don’t have control over the material itself, merely the links to it.

In the same way as Google and any other search engine or bookmarking site.

For this reason only, and because I know that those who actually know what to do with this number already have it, I’m publishing it as an act of defiance against those who want to censor the democratic nature of the Internet.

To the MPAA I say: Make me take it down. I dare you. It’s archived on the web now, along with every other published instance of it. It’s now irrevocable.