Quote:
Originally Posted by johnnyb
Quote:
Originally Posted by eschwartz
Of course. When Gutenberg kickstarted the mass-production of books, the literati were furious at the destruction of culture that was sure to follow, once the unwashed masses got ahold of the suddenly-cheap books and decided they were worthy of the Art of Reading as well...
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I think this shows patent disregard for actual history. There lie hundreds of years between the invention of the combination of moving letters with mechanical contraptions and the actual mass production of really large print series (in fact, this only really took off in the 19th century).
Second, another innovation was the introduction of copyright (ip in general) came much later. This really separates the current situation and history.
Read for example Cerquiglini on the matter...
Before, all that could be owned was th actual material the print consisted of, after you could own the idea (which lead to the introduction of the large scale leagl constructions). This is something that makes your Gutenberg comparions really off topic. The problems notimp addresses are to no small degree legal questions which absolutely cannot be contained within the Gutenberg-galaxy analogies presented here (that goes for Daryll, too)... |
Oddly enough, my specific, pointed reference to "kickstarting" the mass-production of books, and the lurking fear of culture destruction "that was sure to follow" was meant to indicate that yes, I am aware Gutenberg's press did not create that revolution over the course of a single 12-hour night.
And as darryl pointed out, the Reformation had a pretty powerful impact long before the 19th century.