4 ms·

Dude, you're hilarious. I mean, here you are calling people "uninformed" while asserting that the printing press was invented "about 400 years ago", which woul

by alexqgb 15y ago

Dude, you're hilarious. I mean, here you are calling people "uninformed" while asserting that the printing press was invented "about 400 years ago", which would be around 1612. In reality Gutenberg's press went into operation around 1450. That's 562 years ago, meaning you're off by more than a century and a half. You do a bit better with copyright law. The first appearance of law that grants the right to copy to the author was, of course, the Statue of Anne (1709/10, depending on whether you're referring to the Julian calendar that was in effect in England at the time, or the Gregorian calendar which has since become the international standard). Here, you're only off by a century. Unfortunately for your theory, it's a century in the wrong direction. In reality, there were a solid 260 years between the appearance of the press, and the emergence of individual copyright, and that's not "shortly after" by any definition. Even if you start the clock in 1493, which is when the publishing business as such really came into its own with Anton Koberger, you're still off by a factor of more than 200 years. So any idea that individual copyright appeared as an immediate and necessary consequence of the press's invention is unsupported by the facts, as is the idea that there's never been a significant amount of time in which one existed without the other. For the record, the rest of your theory is as sketchy as your grasp of history - especially the bit about protecting "thought and opinion". Those are two things that Copyright absolutely DOES NOT protect. Nor has it ever. So clearly you've still got a lot of work to do, but that's all the time we have today. Class dismissed.

alexqgb 15y ago
Bonus error: "At that time (about 400 years ago), there were no "well capitalized industrialists...and the few corporations that existed at all were captives of the sovereign rulers who created them." Again, not so! Indeed, 400 years ago is when some of the fierest and best capitalized industrialists known to man emerged. Specifically, I'm talking about the Dutch East India Company - a private corporation which commanded a heavily armed fleet several times larger than those of the competing French and British Crowns combined. And it was wind-powered industrialization that supported the assembly-line techniques that made their ship yards so incredibly productive. Obviously, theirs was a relatively limited enterprise - certainly nothing compared to what we now refer to as the Industrial Revolution. But that difference is a function of having wind rather than coal to run their mills, not the application of the techniques, or the systematic accumulation and pooling of capital needed to apply them. In terms of the capital-intensive industrial operations needed to run them, and a chartered corporation to manage it, the VOC (as it was known) was a force unlike any the world had seen, utterly dominating both the global trade routes to the East Indies, and the flow of commerce moving through their ports. Phillip II of Spain waged a furious fight to maintain his colonies in the Netherlands, but the idea that he did so successfully is the opposite of reality. When the Dutch finally sued for peace, they did so as a republic. Getting back to the press - while I mentioned that the business aspect of if got off the ground in 1493, Anton Koberger's family didn't continue it when he died. Though it was profitable, it remained baffling to his relatives, who had - and continued - to trade in gold. In terms of the flow of ideas, the most influential presses emerged in Venice. This was a city that had it's own long history with industrialization. Specifically, the Arsenal, which is where it pioneered the heavy industrial techniques needed to build the fleets with which it dominated the Mediterranean throughout the Crusades. This unmatched foundation in assembly-line work was easily transferred to publishing operations, which the Venetians also turned into an industry. It would be some time before work of equal quality and sophistication was produced North of the Alps. And Venice, of course, was a republic. Kings (and Popes, and Princes) were dominated by the Venetians, not vice versa. Incidentally, nobody who actually knows what they're talking about refers to Kings as "sovereigns" until after 1648, and the Peace of Westphalia, which is what established the concept of the sovereign state as such; one (theoretically) secure in its borders and (again, theoretically) free from the external authority of the Pope. Ergo, the sovereignty. Given the general magnitude of your historical ignorance, this must seem like a minor point, but still. I actually do know about this stuff, and hearing references to "sovereigns" operating in the early 17th century is like nails on a chalkboard. It's a bit like hearing people discus life in the "American States" circa 1720.
- alexqgb 15y ago
  Oh wait, I just found ANOTHER error. Or at least another expression of the same big error. "In addition, from the very beginning, copyright was an individual author right that accrued to people, not companies." Assuming that you mean "from the beginning of printing" this is the EXACT opposite of reality. In England, where the Statue of Anne was passed, the privilege to copy accrued to guilds, not individuals. Admittedly, I'm stretching definitions a bit since the guilds didn't have a 'right' either - it really was a privilege, and one granted by Royal Charter. Moreover, they weren't companies in the sense that we use that word today. But they were certainly incorporated entities seen as separate and distinct from any persons in particular. And they dominated the publishing trade for the better part of two centuries. The notion that lawful control of the ability to copy has "always" accrued to the individual is just so spectacularly wrong. I'm sorry to go on like this, but I really can't remember a time when I came across another human who managed to pack so many layers of historical ignorance into such a small space. To cap if off by referring to others as "uninformed" just ices the cake. If you want to avoid looking like a complete idiot, avoid the use of history to ground your ideas about copyright. Seriously, it's like watching Kim Kardashian trying to play Scrabble in French and not understanding why "nobody lets me win".
  - snowwrestler 15y ago
    Well you've obviously got a better working grasp of names and dates than I do, but I think you're mistaking precision for accuracy. The Statute of Anne vested the copy monopoly explicitly in the author. Prior to that, guild members had the exclusive "right" to "copy" a manuscript, yes--but first they had to individually purchase the license to do so, from the author. This is what I mean when I say that copyright (in the modern, IP sense) ultimately accrued to the author. There was not much time following Gutenberg when it was legal for printers to copy whatever the heck they wanted. Recognition of authorship was a social norm that predated the printing press, and was very soon incorporated into the regulation of the new technology. To return to my broader point, try this thought experiment. Take snapshots of copying technology and IP law at 50 year intervals up to today. It doesn't matter if you start at 1450 or 1709. What you will find is that over time the marginal cost of copying has declined, and the legal protection of an author's IP has strengthened. Yet you're trying to argue that for some reason that trend will suddenly reverse. I don't see why it would.

by alexqgb 15y ago

alexqgb 15y ago

Bonus error: "At that time (about 400 years ago), there were no "well capitalized industrialists...and the few corporations that existed at all were captives of the sovereign rulers who created them." Again, not so! Indeed, 400 years ago is when some of the fierest and best capitalized industrialists known to man emerged. Specifically, I'm talking about the Dutch East India Company - a private corporation which commanded a heavily armed fleet several times larger than those of the competing French and British Crowns combined. And it was wind-powered industrialization that supported the assembly-line techniques that made their ship yards so incredibly productive. Obviously, theirs was a relatively limited enterprise - certainly nothing compared to what we now refer to as the Industrial Revolution. But that difference is a function of having wind rather than coal to run their mills, not the application of the techniques, or the systematic accumulation and pooling of capital needed to apply them. In terms of the capital-intensive industrial operations needed to run them, and a chartered corporation to manage it, the VOC (as it was known) was a force unlike any the world had seen, utterly dominating both the global trade routes to the East Indies, and the flow of commerce moving through their ports. Phillip II of Spain waged a furious fight to maintain his colonies in the Netherlands, but the idea that he did so successfully is the opposite of reality. When the Dutch finally sued for peace, they did so as a republic. Getting back to the press - while I mentioned that the business aspect of if got off the ground in 1493, Anton Koberger's family didn't continue it when he died. Though it was profitable, it remained baffling to his relatives, who had - and continued - to trade in gold. In terms of the flow of ideas, the most influential presses emerged in Venice. This was a city that had it's own long history with industrialization. Specifically, the Arsenal, which is where it pioneered the heavy industrial techniques needed to build the fleets with which it dominated the Mediterranean throughout the Crusades. This unmatched foundation in assembly-line work was easily transferred to publishing operations, which the Venetians also turned into an industry. It would be some time before work of equal quality and sophistication was produced North of the Alps. And Venice, of course, was a republic. Kings (and Popes, and Princes) were dominated by the Venetians, not vice versa. Incidentally, nobody who actually knows what they're talking about refers to Kings as "sovereigns" until after 1648, and the Peace of Westphalia, which is what established the concept of the sovereign state as such; one (theoretically) secure in its borders and (again, theoretically) free from the external authority of the Pope. Ergo, the sovereignty. Given the general magnitude of your historical ignorance, this must seem like a minor point, but still. I actually do know about this stuff, and hearing references to "sovereigns" operating in the early 17th century is like nails on a chalkboard. It's a bit like hearing people discus life in the "American States" circa 1720.

alexqgb 15y ago
Oh wait, I just found ANOTHER error. Or at least another expression of the same big error. "In addition, from the very beginning, copyright was an individual author right that accrued to people, not companies." Assuming that you mean "from the beginning of printing" this is the EXACT opposite of reality. In England, where the Statue of Anne was passed, the privilege to copy accrued to guilds, not individuals. Admittedly, I'm stretching definitions a bit since the guilds didn't have a 'right' either - it really was a privilege, and one granted by Royal Charter. Moreover, they weren't companies in the sense that we use that word today. But they were certainly incorporated entities seen as separate and distinct from any persons in particular. And they dominated the publishing trade for the better part of two centuries. The notion that lawful control of the ability to copy has "always" accrued to the individual is just so spectacularly wrong. I'm sorry to go on like this, but I really can't remember a time when I came across another human who managed to pack so many layers of historical ignorance into such a small space. To cap if off by referring to others as "uninformed" just ices the cake. If you want to avoid looking like a complete idiot, avoid the use of history to ground your ideas about copyright. Seriously, it's like watching Kim Kardashian trying to play Scrabble in French and not understanding why "nobody lets me win".
- snowwrestler 15y ago
  Well you've obviously got a better working grasp of names and dates than I do, but I think you're mistaking precision for accuracy. The Statute of Anne vested the copy monopoly explicitly in the author. Prior to that, guild members had the exclusive "right" to "copy" a manuscript, yes--but first they had to individually purchase the license to do so, from the author. This is what I mean when I say that copyright (in the modern, IP sense) ultimately accrued to the author. There was not much time following Gutenberg when it was legal for printers to copy whatever the heck they wanted. Recognition of authorship was a social norm that predated the printing press, and was very soon incorporated into the regulation of the new technology. To return to my broader point, try this thought experiment. Take snapshots of copying technology and IP law at 50 year intervals up to today. It doesn't matter if you start at 1450 or 1709. What you will find is that over time the marginal cost of copying has declined, and the legal protection of an author's IP has strengthened. Yet you're trying to argue that for some reason that trend will suddenly reverse. I don't see why it would.