Hitler at home and other Internet adventures

The Sunday New York Times carried an interesting article about the power of the Internet as a distribution medium, even against the powers of copyright interests. Case in point: A 1938 article in Homes & Gardens, a British magazine, that featured Hitler's mountain retreat in the Bavarian Alps. It showed up on the Net, despite protests from the magazine.

Excerpt:

The episode is an object lesson in the topsy-turvy world of copyright and "fair use" -- an area made far murkier by the distributive power of the Internet and the subsequent crisscrossing of international legal codes. In the United States, the posting would most likely be considered fair use, said Wendy Seltzer, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. "Reprinting the article now, 65 years after its original publication, strikes me as more like reporting or commenting on a news story, or fair use, than photocopying a current scientific article to save the cost of buying more magazines," she said.

Also from the Times: Students Shall Not Download. Yeah, Sure.

And this, appearing Monday in the Times, which has suddenly discovered IP issues: Music's Struggle With Technology. The current fight over file-trading technology resembles a grand battle in the 1990's over encryption technology.

Think Debate on Music Property Rights Began With Napster? Hardly. The music industry has grappled with the uncertainties wrought by new technologies for over a century.