This is going to be a somewhat disjointed post with little explanation as to why I posted all these links. It all started early this morning on my drive to my client, a specialty chemical company in northern New Jersey (USA). I heard NPR's story on Fritz Haber who, along with Carl Bosch, invented the Haber-Bosch process for making ammonia with air. What the NPR story didn't discuss was how Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch were part of the brain trust that powered IG Farben. My favorite telling of the story is Joseph Borkin's The crime and punishment of I. G. Farben. Amazon link for book. And the strange irony of all this is that my client has it's roots as the US subsidiary of IG Farben...

But of course, I started wondering about NPR and their policy of linking to their site (that I think I may have violated above), along with a number of newspapers that also forbid linking, and the Danish (I think) newspaper that recently won a case forbidding a website to link to their stories. Why do they need to have policies? All the pay sites limit what you can see. I can't link to premium content in Salon or The Economist. If they are so all-fired concerned about who or how people go their content, CLOSE THE DOOR!!!

And these thoughts led to me considering the state of intellectual property. Dan Gillmor talks about it . Copyfight (Donna Wentworth) talks about it.. Dan Gillmor's ejournal. Edward Felton worries about it. I think it would be okay for Fritz Hollings to get his bill passed IF software copyrights were limited to 10 years and "content" copyrights were limited to the life of the author. I don't think Disney would be so hot for piracy protection if it limited their quest for the eternal copyright on Mickey.