Quote:
Originally Posted by taustin
The French Revolution did away with copyright, and virtually nothing new was published until it was brought back. That's pretty compelling support to most people: it's been tried, and produced the expected results.
|
First, I've seen this statement before. I don't know whether it's true or not: I understood that in the early 1790s legislation was passed expressly protecting the rights of authors. But I stand to be corrected.
As to whether the absence of copyright stops authors from writing, Dickens and the other great 19th century English writers kept churning out classics despite the fact that their works were "pirated" holus bolus throughout the USA, where copyright protection was either non-existent, minimal, or simply not enforced. Ditto American authors such as Twain despite similar problems with Canadian publishers.
I don't say any of them liked it; but they kept writing.