Noel, I didn't say that Digg is exactly like the Boston Tea Party, I was just criticizing Cord's rather strange argument that posting a number on a website is destruction of property and Marxism.

Tim, my comment above was about symbolism generally- symbolism about revolutions and schools of political philosophy.

Its irrelevant to my post whether developments at Digg are similar to the Boston Tea Party. I wasn't criticizing you on the specific analogy, but was making a point on how you make the analogy and why you make it.

"But what value is there to society in having circumvention code show up on Digg? "

First, it was not in fact "code" which would imply it was source code that could be compilied into an executable program. It was not. It was just a number. One number, like 7 or pi or e. Yes it was a little bit longer, and could be used to unlock DRM devices. But what was posted was in fact a number.

"The symbolic religious wars of the peer-production crowd may be exciting to them, but the rest of us should stay focused on innovation."

I rather like the First Amendment. I'll keep it. It is more than symbolic, it is instrumental, to innovation, too.

Freedom generates development, and innovation.

Noel, read Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen and start posting after that, please.

When I posted that comment about Digg I knew it would generate some buzz, I'm glad that my prediction was correct!

I think that Marxist comment carries some weight, especially when you look at the TLF post comments section. Many of the commentators seem to believe that anything preventing the unrestricted copying, manipulation, and redistribution of code is theft of their right to do what they will with copyrighted material. Essentially that argument boils down to property is theft, or in this case, property rights enforcement is theft.

Of course I disagree with this conception and I do believe it's Marxist. While I think DRM is bound to fail, I'm content with the market tanking the entire enterprise. But saying that DRM is somehow an affront to rights is absurd.

I do think that portions of the DMCA are in clear violation of freedom of speech, especially the chilling affect that can occur when certain numbers become contraband. Certainly it's in the spirit of the American revolution to fight against laws that restrict our fundamental freedoms, but that spirit wasn't present in the Digg Revolution. Instead an unwilling proxy was thrust into the debate by post spammers. Digg has been enlisted into the anti DRM/DMCA fight not be revolutionaries, but by geeks who risked nothing of their own in the fight.

Cord,

I'm confused. You said:

"Essentially that argument boils down to property is theft, or in this case, property rights enforcement is theft."

Can you be specific about which property rights you're talking about here? Hardly any of the TLF commenters were arguing that people are entitled to share copyrighted materials with others. What they're claiming is their right to do as they please with content they've legally purchased. For example, whose property rights are violated when I play a DVD on a Linux computer?

Tim writes: "Hardly any of the TLF commenters were arguing that people are entitled to share copyrighted materials with others. What they're claiming is their right to do as they please with content they've legally purchased."

Or perhaps they licensed the content.