When someone posts a positive comment on your blog, can you use it in your fundraising materials? Can you edit the videos your supporters created for your video contest into something entirely new? How much of the New York Times technology blog can you quote on your own site?

The world of technology is changing so quickly, the laws that govern intellectual property can barely keep up. There's more content than ever before -- and more confusion about how we can use it.

Brian Rowe has put together a great panel at the 2009 NTC, "Fair Use, User Generated Content, Terms of Service and the DMCA Safe Harbor Act". I'll be the first to admit that intellectual property law sounds like it could replace the Tylenol PM in my travel bag. But the bottom line is, if you're working in social media, you can't afford to miss this session.

I talked to Brian about the kinds of practical, hands-on info folks will get out of the session:

Flickr Photo: ChotdaAs many of you know, I love bacon. Ask me for my recipe for maple and bacon cake (with maple frosting!) some time. Maybe one reason I love bacon so much is because Bacon is the source of one of my favorite sayings. In 1597, Sir Francis Bacon said:

Knowledge is power.

It's practically a moral code at my house. But I've also been thinking about it in the context of nptech lately.

When the Internet first went mainstream, there was a lot of talk about how it would democratize information: more of us would be able to access more information more easily and we'd all become more powerful. Access to information is the key to Thomas Friedman's argument about how and why the Berlin Wall fell and why China is opening up, for example -- and communications technologies are behind all that.

In the early 2000s, I thought a lot about this. Yes, we did know more. More people were able to share what they knew, and more of us could access it. But it wasn't the dynamic, sweeping, grand experience that a phrase like "democratize information" might suggest. Here's why:

1. Lots of information opened up, but lots more is still locked behind walls in old delivery models. You still have to subscribe to many publications. You have to travel to get particular volumes or pay lots of money for experts to tell you what you need to know.
2. Access is not pervasive enough. The folks who, arguably, most need free and easy access to information and knowledge have the least access to the chanels that can deliver it. If you are poor in urban America, or if you live in rural areas, you can't afford or simply cannot get Internet access.

In the last year though, we've seen signs that the democratization of information is about to happen in a very real, rapid, Founding Fathers kind of way.