[Barcey]

Originally Posted by schex86

This thread inspired me to register on the forums here.

First, on the issue of libraries, its seems the concept of the public library available to all was originally formulated by Ben Franklin. I may be wrong on this, but, I am reading, or actually listening via TTS, to his autobiography on my Kindle, via Project Gutenberg.

And based on what he said, the whole purpose of libraries was to address the problems stemming from the scarcity of books. In his time, they were indeed scarce, so he utilized his intelligence and his excellent abilities of persuasion and social organization to create the beginnings of the library system, or put another way, Franklin utilized the best technology of his time to make the collected intelligence of humanity available to as many people as possible, for he apparently saw a great value and unlimited potential in this.

Now, Franklin did solicit donations for this undertaking in the form of a yearly subscription, but he was never very fond of collecting money, and were he given the opportunity to do so, he would have avoided it entirely. And nowhere in his memoirs do I see an overriding concern for proper compensation of the authors, publishers, proofreaders, editors, janitors, etc. ad nauseum, to the effect of a set stipend paid to them each time their book was read, as today's DRM schema seems to be leaning towards.

It seems that authors of that time wrote their books as means of expressing thought, of telling stories they wanted told, and they did so freely and apparently without the incentive of potentially vast amounts of financial compensation.

In Ben Franklin's autobiography he talks about a stove design that he developed. He was told that he could make a lot of money by creating a patent on it but decided not to. He was upset that someone in Britain created a patent from a modified design and made a lot of money but upon reflection still felt he made the correct decision.

To quote from his autobiography...

ﾠIn order of time, I should have mentioned before, that having, in 1742, invented an open stove for the better warming of rooms, and at the same time saving fuel, as the fresh air admitted was warmed in entering, I made a present of the model to Mr. Robert Grace, one of my early friends, who, having an iron-furnace, found the casting of the plates for these stoves a profitable thing, as they were growing in demand. To promote that demand, I wrote and published a pamphlet, entitled "An Account of the new-invented Pennsylvania Fireplaces; wherein their Construction and Manner of Operation is particularly explained; their Advantages above every other Method of warming Rooms demonstrated; and all Objections that have been raised against the Use of them answered and obviated," etc. This pamphlet had a good effect. Gov'r. Thomas was so pleas'd with the construction of this stove, as described in it, that he offered to give me a patent for the sole vending of them for a term of years; but I declin'd it from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, viz., That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.
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ﾠﾠAn ironmonger in London however, assuming a good deal of my pamphlet, and working it up into his own, and making some small changes in the machine, which rather hurt its operation, got a patent for it there, and made, as I was told, a little fortune by it. And this is not the only instance of patents taken out for my inventions by others, tho' not always with the same success, which I never contested, as having no desire of profiting by patents myself, and hating disputes. The use of these fireplaces in very many houses, both of this and the neighbouring colonies, has been, and is, a great saving of wood to the inhabitants.
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Sherman Alexie could have said, “With the Ben Franklin culture on the Internet the idea of intellectual property ownership goes away. It terrifies me.”

Slashdot would have ignored him then but it probably wouldn't have made the impact he was going for.