Quote:
Originally Posted by jasonkchapman
Did you know that, because of that situation, the only people who could write and publish were either wealthy people or were kept by wealthy people? The advent of copyright actually helped to democratize the arts.
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Enlightenment, 19th century nationalism and spread of literacy were the determinant features in the democratization of arts. Copyright's contribution while non-zero was most likely negligible for a long, long time.
The problem today is that something fit for earlier times does not fit the Internet age. I forgot the link, but one lawyer counted his IP infringements during a normal day at the office, and depending on law interpretation they could have gone as high up as about 150.
For example your e-mail is copyrighted by law, so if someone cc's it to someone else it's possible that person infringes copyright. Of course it depends on circumstances, but in theory that's the case. And as the recent spat between Cory Doctorow and Ursula Le Guin shows, it's unclear if fair use protects the unauthorized usage of "full text" however short