The greater amount of people were also unable to read through out most of history as well. Why have a copyright on a book when 90% or more of your prospective customers can't read it. The stained glass windows in the old churches weren't put there for making the churches look beautiful (though they often do), but because most people couldn't even read the Bible much less any other book back then and needed a visual guide to tell them about the Bible. Storytellers went about telling their tales for the same reason. Few could read the actual texts the tales were written in. So there was no need for a copyright because only a very few could read and to buy a book (usually hand copied by the church) was expensive.
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Originally Posted by Giggleton
Please understand that the content of a book was not seen as property for most of recorded history. The introduction of this idea into the public mind, and the ratification of copyright laws required the acceptance of quite a few number of if's along property conception lines. But these are just conceptions after all.
Abandoning copyright would require some more if's as well. Please accept these new if's.
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