[Upd-discuss] Intro To Copyright

[Michael Hart]

xerox.*

bowling alone

digital divide, info divide, cell

WE ARE AT WAR!

WE ARE UNDER ATTACK!

For 500 years, ever since the Industrial Revolution
took its first baby steps via the Gutenberg Press!

Today we are watching, most of us unknowingly, that
same process starting the Neo-Industrial Revolution
and we are STILL under attack from the same source.

When Johannes Gutenberg, whom many said was the one
single greatest person of the past millennium, took
those first baby steps of the Industrial Revolution
by inventing a printing press that would bring more
books to the public in the next century than we had
for the entire previous history of humankind, those
baby steps destroyed an historical monopoly scribes
and stationers had had since time immemorial.

And The Stationers' Guild was terrified!!!

How could they compete with a machine, a machine an
ordinary person could use to make a hundred copies,
perfect copies, every day, of pages it might take a
scribe an entire year to copy as well?

Their reaction was to make the new machine illegal!

Here was a machine that allowed a common person who
had no formal education to compete with the erudite
classes of the educated elite, and not just compete
. . .but totally out-compete!

What else could they do?

So the Stationers lobbied long and hard; by the day
the Gutenberg Press was 100 years old, and had made
more books than had existed in all previous history
before Gutenberg, they had succeeded in getting law
created to make it illegal for anyone but their own
Stationers' Company to use these printing presses--
and in addition, they made it illegal to copy books
by any means, at least for their first 14 years.

The story of these laws basically takes place 1557-
1710, from the first copyright laws under Mary I to
The Statute of Anne.  I have been warned not to get
into the details here, so I will include them in an
assortment of other materials I am working on; but,
I would like to take this opportunity to ask you to
add any details you might know of or help me to get
in contact with those who do.  Email hart@pobox.com

Today, both sadly AND gladly to say, we are in this
same position again, and we have been several times
in the years between then and now.

BUT THE REACTION OF THE PUBLISHERS IS THE SAME!!!

Recently, about a third of a century ago, some wise
guy started to "print" electronic books on what was
to later be called The Internet, and this invention
is allowing more people to have more books than had
ever been in existence in previous history, just as
the Gutenberg Press had allowed this 500 years ago.

AND THE REACTION OF THE PUBLISHERS IS THE SAME!!!

MAKE IT ILLEGAL!!!

Four times in our history books have been made more
inexpensive, so much more inexpensive, that masses,
truly THE MASSES, had personal access to books that
had been impossible for any but the most elite only
a few years earlier.

AND EACH TIME THIS ACCESS HAS BEEN MADE ILLEGAL!!!

500 years ago:  The Gutenberg Press
100 years ago:  The Steam and Electric Presses
  50 years ago:  The Xerox Machine
  25 years ago:  The Internet

[These dates are obviously approximations]


EACH OF THESE INVENTIONS HAS BEEN STIFLED BY LAW!
[The middle two examples by the U.S. Copyright Acts
of 1909 and 1976]


WE CAN ONLY EXPECT THE SAME FOR EACH NEW INVENTION!


"KNOWLEDGE IS POWER"

There are two vastly different ways of reading this
short phrase, to some this means keep knowledge for
yourself, to others it means pass knowledge on.

Here is one example of this difference, based on my
father, who was a great Shakespeare professor.

*

Imagine there are two Shakespeare professors, every
time they meet, they each claim to the the greatest
Shakespeare professor in the world.

One has done enough research that he knows several
things about Shakespeare that only he and his very
close colleagues share, and they are telling those
who are outside their little group.

If they shared this information, no longer would a
member of this group be as elite.

The first Shakespeare professor says he is surely,
positively, absolutely the greatest, as he knows a
thing or two about Shakespeare that no one else is
ever going to know.

The other Shakespeare professor has spent his life
designing classroom projects that would bring some
extra life to the words of The Bard to students in
his classes, and he has shared this with others in
the teaching profession.

This Shakespeare professor thinks that the greater
the amount you share through teaching, the greater
a professor you are.

*

And by the way, my father once studied manuscripts
of Shakespeare right here at Cambridge, and he was
VERY impressed with how well he was treated by all
concerned.  I would like take a moment to reextend
those thanks.

*

So, here we have to diametrically opposed thoughts
about the power of knowledge.

Some people think knowledge is powerful only if it
is kept close to the vest, in reserve, ready for a
need to spring it on some unsuspecting enemy.

Others think knowledge is most powerful if it were
to be shared as widely as possible.

*

What we are facing here, and now, is the same Dark
Ages thinking that has been prevalent in copyright
since it was invented in the reactionary political
reponse of The Stationers to the Gutenberg Press.

I will close with a response to this that has been
dubbed "The Chandelier Diatribe". . .next message.