• Business Week, Thursday, May 3, 2007 11 AM

On the Web, majority rules. Just ask Digg, the community news-sharing site, which faced a huge user backlash after the company banned a 24-year-old programmer who posted a code showing tech-savvy users how to illegally copy high-definition DVDs. The programmer re-registered and then re-posted the code on Digg, where it was seen by hundreds of thousands of Digg users and let thousands proclaim their right to free speech. Soon, the code covered Digg's homepage. As the offending programmer wrote: "If the majority decides something is true, then it's the truth."

Legally speaking, Digg's decision to eventually let the posts and the code stand has caused another problem. Digg could for sure be sued for copyright infringement from the Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administration, which owns the DRM patent for HD-DVDs. Nevertheless, Digg execs decided to support its users on this one.

As company founder Kevin Rose wrote on his blog: "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." Go techies!

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