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Suppressing one little number... (updated!)

Well, there is an awful lot of hubub on the net today about a certain number that the MPAA does not want people to see. Supposedly this number can be used to decode HD-DVD disks or some such use.

Of course I would never condone such things.

But I do not condone censorship either, and this kind of behavior shows what the DMCA is really capable of. So, people all over are finding creative ways to share the number.

I can't vouch for any of these links. They might be valid for a while, they might not. And if you are worried about "work safe" content - I can't guarantee that either. This post itself has profanity...

Here is my favorite so far, by Ludwik Trammer:
there were 09 planets
in the solar system
Fucking 9 planets
not 11
and not 02
but exactly 9 Damn planets
right in the middle
and everyone seemed happy

until 74 professors
meet on the conference
and started to wonder:
"we should have Exactly 3 planets
in our system" – proposed one
other opposed:
"regarding number of planets,
my colleague's idea with 5 Bothers me a little
shouldn't we make them Deliberately 8?"

41 professors liked the idea,
but 56 voted against it.
the revolutionists mobilized their base
and Called 5 scholars who couldn't come
to ask about their opinion
and couple more sent their votes via e-mail
at the end 63 votes for the change
and 56 were still against it

"nnow wwhen wwe hhave oonly 88 pplanets
wwhih oone sshould wwe rremove?"
- asked the stammerer
"pluto" – their all agreed.
there was no point in keeping this planet
disney stopped paying for the product placement
years ago

but the point is – how many normal people
they asked? people from different Countries? 0.
shame on them. let's go and watch a movie.

But some others are noteworthy as well. There is a digg story about it here, and here; and of course a slashdot story.

Some enterprising individuals have registered domains under .com , .org , and .net

This is a slightly annoying flash movie featuring the number. Want to stick it to the man?

I think the number has gotten out...

UPDATE: Someone recorded a song... Maybe you would like an eCard of the number? And of course there are a couple T-Shirts. There is even an OSX Screensaver. This is a really sweet riddle.

Oh yeah, there have been probably 10 more stories on digg about it as well. And now there are reports on other sites of digg's mishandling of the issue as well, and for a time every single story on digg's front page included the number. I don't need to link to them, they are all over the place...

UPDATE 5/2: It looks like digg got slammed. The user revolt is covered by boingboing, Consumerist, ITWire, and even more mainstream sources like Wired, BBC, Forbes, and Information Week. ZDNet has a good piece about the possible implications of this sort of event.

I found a rap that is pretty good too.

K+E leroy pen 9 F 9 1 1 Welcome to 0... No 2 9 D 7 4 E DEF 3 5 B is for buried D is for Dairy Coach Park 8 4 1 5 6th hole C 5 6 3 5 6 8 I can make it... I can make it... C DSCN5654

Comments

Kenny said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said…
Check out The Pirate Bay: http://thepiratebay.org/ :)

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