Another blogger censored by copyright laws!

This story is a real outrage:

Homes & Gardens of November 1938 showed off Hitler's fashionable home. Homes & Gardens of 2003 would rather kill the story than apologize....

It is frankly sickening that Homes & Gardens should display concern for its copyrighted material rather than contrition for its endorsement of a monster. This is a great story for the blogosphere.

It sure is!

Once again, we see the copyright laws being used to stifle free speech -- this time an important discussion of the copyright holder's Nazi-glamorizing role in history.

Outrageous. If the bastards can get away with this, then I say we take on the damned copyright laws. Get rid of them, rewrite them, defy them by means of civil disobedience followed by First Amendment litigation all the way to the Supreme Court. This country's founding fathers were very uneasy about interfering with the free flow of ideas. Thomas Jefferson feared the very abuse we see here: monopolists using state-granted power to control the flow of ideas.

Don't just read this; read the Flea's whole piece, and then do something!


UPDATE: Lest anyone think there are no lessons to be drawn from Homes and Gardens' publicity romp with Hitler (or other "ancient history"), Instapundit supplies a more modern example of media gullibility -- John Burns' (New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winner) report (via John Leo) that:

the vast majority of correspondents in prewar Iraq played ball with Saddam and downplayed the viciousness of the regime.
Well! I just hope the reports they filed are copyrighted! What if Americans read them and got the wrong idea?

UPDATE: Lynn at Reflections in d minor supplies a link to view JPEGs of the actual Homes & Gardens Hitler sycophancy piece, as well as links to the other intrepid bloggers who won't let Homes & Gardens get away with this perversion of the copyright laws.

posted by Eric on 09.28.03 at 07:50 PM





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Comments

Yes, and what "ideas" were the holders of the Home & Garden copyrights trying to "control"?

The copyright holders were merely requesting that the copyrighted work be taken down, on the basis that posting it was an infringement. That would not prevent anyone from commenting on the fact that H&G had run an article depicting Hitler's home.

The thieves at FreeRepublic.com post copyrighted material--entire stories from newspapers and the like--all the time. That doesn't mean that what they are doing isn't copyright infringement. And the people who posted the H&G story were just as guilty of copyright infringement.

raj   ·  September 29, 2003 03:44 AM

Clearly, by preventing the public from seeing their syrupy display of sycophancy towards Hitler, they are controlling the dissemination of the idea that media behave precisely that way -- and might do so now or in the future!

I disagree with the restrictive view on copyright. I think that fair comment should allow one to quote the entire piece and robust debate should allow everyone to view it. Mere "commenting on the fact that H&G had run an article depicting Hitler's home" does not convey context, depth, or tone of evil of media gullibility -- the point the critic was trying to make before he was stopped.

What, pray tell, are the authors afraid of? That someone might read and disapprove? Certainly in this case they are not losing money from sales of a 1938 magazine.

Nor do newspapers lose circulation sales money from being quoted months later. They fear criticism -- and they should.

Eric Scheie   ·  September 29, 2003 06:33 AM

The question really is, are they holding back that one issue, and letting people post some others?

One photo at the end, Hitler looking at plans for an annex to his house, is an eerie preview of his other plans for annex.

Mike   ·  September 29, 2003 11:50 AM


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