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 _______________________________________________ L4-hurd mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/l4-hurd
