09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
If you don’t know what these numbers mean, Google them.
If you do know what these numbers mean and object to them being posted, see the First Amendment.
Hint: It trumps the DMCA.
If you want to know why the numbers were posted, check out this prior blog post.
About the Author
With an advanced international law degree from Georgetown University and more than 15 years of real world legal experience, Attorney Mike Young is President of the Internet Ethics Council and creator of Website Legal Forms Generator software. He helps entrepreneurs protect and grow their businesses online.
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For more info, check out this post by Digg founder Kevin Rose.
And for a 1998 satirical take on intellectual property rights lunacy, check out The Onion’s “Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeroes.”
While I can’t stand the DMCA and fully support spreading this code far and wide, it’s bit…weird for a lawyer of all people to assert that the First Amendment trumps the DMCA when, well, it obviously doesn’t. What next? Falsely yelling “fire” in a crowded theater is similarly trumped? How about standing up in front of an angry mob and suggesting they start burning down the neighborhood?
Like it or not, the First Amendment is not absolute and the DMCA is, unfortunately, perfectly legal.
There is an attempt to restrain speech, that is, a combination of letters and numbers that by themselves do no harm.
They might be used with software to do something illegal…they might also be used with software for perfectly legal acts…but by themselves are harmless.
This is in stark contrast to yelling “fire” in a crowded theater – an act that in and of itself will likely cause harm.
A better hypothetical would be Coca-Cola insisting that no one ever post the words “corn syrup” on the Internet because that ingredient is part of its secret beverage formula.
The DMCA is bad (but legal) law and Congress should be ashamed of prostituting itself to the entertainment industry for campaign contributions.
To the extent that the entertainment industry overreaches by seeking prior restraint of speech based upon speculative intent and theoretical damage, the DMCA takes back seat to the First Amendment…although it is conceded the Ninth Circuit might disagree.