
Yet Another Study Shows How Copyright Can Hinder The Spread Of Knowledge - yanw
http://techdirt.com/articles/20100809/03545810554.shtml
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tzs
The article fails to make clear that the article it is describing compared
Germany and the UK in the mid 1800s. Back in those days copying technology was
slow and expensive, and books earned most of their money quickly after
publication.

Some have argued (including Stephen Breyer, who later became a Supreme Court
justice: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Uneasy_Case_for_Copyright>) that
because of this, book pirates could not get their works out fast enough to
cause a significant impact on the sales of the original, and so there was
little need for copyright.

The key word there is "was". Copying technology has improved somewhat in the
last 150 years.

Given that copying technology was limited in the mid 1800s, it seems unlikely
that the differences in copyright law between the UK and Germany had much
impact on the difference in literary output. It was far more likely to have
been cultural. Wasn't Germany also outproducing the UK at the time in science,
mathematics, music, chess, and philosophy? Only one of those might have been
affected by copyright laws, and so it seems more likely that the greater
German literary output was due to the same factors that gave them greater
output in most intellectual pursuits.

You can still see this kind of thing today. For example, compare the New
Orleans Jazz scene to the Fresno, CA Jazz scene. Copyright laws are the same
in both cities. New Orleans has just developed as a more music-oriented
culture than Fresno.

