The buzz created around the HD-DVD encryption key is amazing. I haven’t seen communities and news sites produce this much impact in a while. Looks like a great start – finally lots of people are able to voice their mutual opinion about something.
Now, I hate to be on this side of the deal, but I’m only being led by pure logic and reasoning.
Most of those who comment on the subject use the same justification for their support of the revolt (for example you can find this in the comments to this same article) – “number is not copyrightable”.
Let’s think about it for a second. Have you heard the term “digital content”? Music, programs, dvd videos. Somehow all of them are very well copyrightable. Yet, all of them are nothing more than numbers. A DVD Movie is a number, which is an input into a function (in this case DVD-Player software with an encoder), which outputs the result – the stream of data which turns into video on our monitors. Each program you write is nothing more than a huge number, which can be made binary, decimal, hexadecimal, etc. Every piece of digital content is a number and every piece can be copyrightable. Doesn’t it clearly say that number is copyrightable?
Of course, it is! By the way, I like your logic. :)