Copyright Cripples Knowledge

Copyright:

Source: treschicnow.com via Charles on Pinterest

Copyright Law: Standing in the Way of Progress"Did Germany experience rapid industrial expansion in the 19th century due to an absence of copyright law? A German historian [Eckhard Höffner] argues that the massive proliferation of books, and thus knowledge, laid the foundation for the country's industrial might."

COMMENTS:

1. Copyright law, which was established in Great Britain, in 1710, crippled the world of knowledge in the United Kingdom.
2. Prussia, Germany's biggest state, introduced copyright law in 1837, but Germany's division into small states meant that it was not possible to enforce the law throughout the empire.
3. Lack of copyright protection in Germany allowed easy proliferation of material, providing the material for the rapidly expanding knowledge base in the German population.
4. Copyright protects publishers, not writers. Whether copyright survives the Internet or not is of no concern if you shift from writer to Writer-Publisher-Curator. Control and publish your own work in hundreds of different venues.

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