Quote:
Originally Posted by QuantumIguana
No, they weren't. For most of human history, texts were locked away, few people had access to them. They were about as freely distributed as is the gold in Fort Knox. Then the printing press came along in 1440. The first copyright law was in 1710. So in the age when it was possible for people to distribute texts, we had 270 years without copyright, and 302 years with copyright.
The reason we have so many texts is that because of copyright, authors have an incentive to create. Without it, the only people writing would be those who wanted to give their work for free, basically hobbyists with other incomes.
If you want free books, you alredy have access to more books than you could ever read in a lifetime; books that have had their copyrights expire and books where the author chose not to charge for them.
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When I say texts I include the oral transmission of information. Printed texts have indeed been locked down throughout the ages, up to and including the present time (copyright).
I think the idea that without copyright the creation of texts would cease is a false one. What we would definitely obtain is the creation of a literature whose creation for monetary purposes would be somewhat lower on the list of priorities for the texts creation.
We cannot know beforehand which text is most crucial for us to read at any point in time or space, therefore it is crucial that we have unlimited access to all texts, just to be sure.
In the past this idea would have seemed insane, oral transmission of ideas required the transmitter to travel, written words required the writer to laboriously write out each text individually, the printing press allowed a limited number of copies to be made of each text, the digital allows an infinite number of people to access a text instantaneously.
The idea that we should have access to everything is no longer insane and in fact it is a quite realizable one.
If no text can be sold, it would be simple to send the monies from those that are bought directly to the creator, instead of to unaffiliated third parties, megaupload etal.