Led Zeppelin tests the ‘net

A lot of things have changed since Led Zeppelin played its last concert. There’s this Internet thing now changing all the rules.

Led Zep performed in a comeback concert earlier this week, its first since being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.

Now the band is getting You Tubed. Silicon Valley Insider has been tracking the rapidity with which people are posting videos of the concert in London, and an investigative firm is trying to take them down just as fast.

In the shadow of the writers’ strike over the role of online rights, this latest test of the “free Internet market” has the “I want it free” crowd pitted against the “it’s my content” crowd.

Says Alexander Wolfe on Information Week:

Despite the lack of clarity on where we’re headed, I think we’ve at least reached the point where we can retire the simplistic argument that’s been the mantra for the anti-IP crowd for the last decade. Namely, the Web wants to be free and content creators should all just get over it. No, thank you; I prefer to remain steamed.