Copyright was originally created in a world where modern technology was nonexistent and could likely not even be imagined. Despite the fact that the world we see today has changed so drastically in comparison to the century of copyright’s birth, it is still very much a part of everyday life. In fact, copyright applies to nearly every aspect of creative practice and effects everyone whereas it had previously really only affected a select group of people–those who were well-off enough to actually possess resources allowing them to  copy books and other materials. I wonder how copyright would have developed differently if it were originally created during a time when modern technology existed. Would there be as many restrictions on creative practice as there are today? If the birth of copyright had been delayed a few centuries, would the entire term “copyright” possess an alternate meaning?

I don’t really know where I want to go with this essay. One thought right now is socio-economically, what if Europe were socialist instead of capitalist at the time? Would Gutenberg have had any incentive to be a leader of innovation. Howard notes, “Would retention of traditional manuscript forms make this volume more marketable? Possibly–and marketability had certainly been on Gutenberg’s mind” (31).

Or what if the Copyright Act of 1710, described on page 103 in Howard’s book, had not been passed? This piece of legislation shifted ownership from the printing press to the author. It shifted the market and incentives to write. Perhaps I will write this essay on copyright through the lens of incentive–what boundaries were in place to drive people to write and publish books and how would these motivations differed in varying cultural, economic, political, etc. contexts.

The concept of copyright laws and intellectual property has been a major topic of discussion recently in regards to the case of Aaron Swartz. Swartz, one of the co-founders of the immensely popular website known as Reddit.com, has long been known as a major advocate for greater freedom in regards to the sharing of information. In July 2011 however, his activity in this area became the cause of much controversy, as he came into conflict with the law. Authorities claimed that Swartz had illegally gained access to JSTOR, a subscription service for scientific and scholarly articles, and had used this access to download millions of pages of material. It is widely believed that he intended to publicly distribute these documents as part of his quest for greater intellectual freedom. Facing a possible sentence of 35 years in prison, along with a potential $1 million fine, Swartz committed suicide in January of 2013. In light of this tragedy, many are calling for reform in the area of intellectual copyright laws, as a way to honor Swartz’s legacy and continue the fight he started. It would be interesting to look further into this event, examining the debates that are currently taking place as a result of it. In addition, it would be beneficial to conduct some historical research into the area of intellectual property on the internet  to see if similar controversies have occurred.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/technology/aaron-swartz-internet-activist-dies-at-26.html?_r=0

One of the major questions I’ve had regarding intellectual property rights and copyright laws has to do with the issue of work composed by deceased writers. Many of the classes I have taken at Lafayette, particularly the history courses I’ve completed, involved reading several scholarly articles, some dating back hundreds of years. I have always been curious as to exactly who exactly would own the rights to these readings when the original authors have been dead for some time. Common sense tells me that many of these works would find themselves in the public domain. However, I would like to know if there are any exceptions to this, and if there are any cases in which ownership of such scholarly articles has been disputed.

The session in the Library on Tuesday, February 5th helped to establish a real connection with the first two chapters of Nicole Howard’s The Book. This was not my first time viewing such forms of print, as I have seen pictures of them in the past. However, seeing these works in person allowed me to truly notice and appreciate all the intricate details. What was particularly eye-opening for me was seeing the actual print itself. In the Howard reading, she mentioned how an effort was made to make the printed text appear as if it was handwritten, rather than done by machine. I had a hard time picturing this, but seeing the real life examples clearly explained this. The words in the manuscripts had nowhere near the boldness or clarity of text seen in modern books. It truly did appear to look like work an ancient scribe could have done. Another notable feature was the amount of work that went into producing the various intricate details of the pages, such as the colorization of the capital letters. Seeing this reminded me of the evolution that books have undergone over the years. While the goal in modern book production is to cheaply distribute as many copies as possible, people in earlier times saw the creation of these works as a much more intricate art process.