Quote:
Originally Posted by Giggleton
Yes, the origins of copyright lay in the minds of english publishers who were whining about the lower price of scottish imported pbooks, but these are ebooks we're talking about here folks.
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Actually no. In 1523 the Spanish king granted a 20 year copyright (which included destruction and specific penalties for each unauthorized printed copy) to one of the men who sailed with Magellan. This came at the request of the writer, who sold about 1000 copies and made a handy sum of money on the deal.
And there were much earlier examples in China where they had printing presses centuries before the Europeans did.