Re: About social balances

[Jonathan S. Shapiro]

I will respond to some of this later, but I wanted to give a quick
response on one point:

> The copyright for books has also been a
> product of the printing press.

The printing press was invented in 1455. It's explosive popularity was
fueled in large measure by the Reformation and the emergence of the
modern nation state. The power of the press, and consequently its threat
as a tool of sedition, was so great that the British Crown under Henry
VIII proclaimed royal control of the printing press in 1534, and
proceeded to issue royal warrants authorizing the printing of materials
deemed acceptable to the Crown. This was a refinement of previous
controls that had existed in England by the early 1500, modeled after a
similar system devised in Venice for the same reasons.

In England, responsibility for regulation was awarded by Royal Charter
to the Stationer's Company. The Star Chamber, which was the *closed*
court charged with matters of state security, became responsible for the
enforcement of these "printing patents" in 1586.

In France, central registration of printed documents became required in
1537. Documents were required to be registered with the "depot
legal" (sorry, US keyboard, no accents. Roughly: "copyright deposit").
Here again, the goal was control of seditious activity.

The idea that copyrighted provided a transferable property right to
authors would not arise until later. The original concern that prompted
copyright was government control of publication.

Modern copyright, conveying a right to the author, appears to originate
with the Statute of Anne in 1710. In the U.S., this formed the basis of
the first U.S. Copyright Act in 1790. I do not know how the modern idea
evolved elsewhere.

For music recordings, which arose after the modern understanding of
copyright was established, I think your story is more accurate.

shap