This isn’t the case. In Ancient Rome it was a common practice for someone in the audience to note down poets’ performances, then give that transcript to a team of amanuenses who would produce copies for sale, with none of the proceeds going back to the original creator. In the pre-copyright world, no one saw any problem with this practice; as the other poster mentioned, the creator economy was patronage-based. All that the poets objected to (Martial has at least one biting epigram about this) was people putting their own names on the poetry instead of crediting the creator. That is, plagiarism instead of copyright violation.
> In Ancient Rome it was a common practice for someone in the audience to note down poets’ performances
Which was not at scale and in a different model of economy. Since it was the printing press which introduced the issue then what's the point in making an example from times where such issues didn't exist ?
> In the pre-copyright world, no one saw any problem with this practice
Because in the pre-industrial-revolution world the scale of the problem probably wasn't noticeable.
I know works of art were occasionally copied prior to printing press, hence the usually. I guess the modern analogy to your example would be something like CAM/TS films. You go to a show and copy the content. Are you arguing this should be legal ?
I doubt you are playing here with a good-faith definition of “at scale”. In any event, copying of works for sale in Antiquity was certainly of scale, we know that many literary works spread quickly across the Mediterranean through commercial production. Furthermore, some of the earliest printed books were made in such limited editions that Roman mass production can certainly be compared. The development of the printing press is generally viewed in contrast to the medieval manuscript era that immediately preceded it, but that was a time marked by a decline in literary rates and amanuensis workforce since Antiquity.
As for going to a show and copying the content, yes, I would argue that this should be legal. Plenty of people on HN are from cultures that never entirely accepted copyright on entertainment, even if their countries’ governments were pressured to enact copyright legislation.
> I doubt you are playing here with a good-faith definition of “at scale”.
I could say the same thing about you because you make it sound like the appearance of some works in various places on the map is equivalent to their vast abundance.
> development of the printing press is generally viewed in contrast to the medieval manuscript era that immediately preceded it
If you skip renaissance.
> As for going to a show and copying the content, yes
I guess it's one thing to argue something like that from the spectators pov and another from the artists. If you actually have evidence that there are large circles of professional artists who argue their work should be copied at will with no compensation then ok, you are right.
> the appearance of some works in various places on the map is equivalent to their vast abundance.
As I said, historians know that some popular works not only appeared across the map quickly, they were commercially sold in the marketplace such that the educated class was able to purchase their own copies of prominent recent works with, of course, no money going back to the creator. Again, I don’t think your definition of “abundance” is good faith.
With regard to your last point, why should the artists’ desire for compensation outweigh the desire of audiences to consume the media for free, or other artists’ desire to rework prior art for free? This is a moral debate that is quite culturally dependent, and though you want to claim that your views are the right ones, that just won’t fly on a forum as international as HN. Many posters on HN grew up with pirated DVD and cassette/CD stands at the market (some might even still have them where they live), or in their countries Bittorrent or now pirate streaming sites are things used by ordinary people.
Which illustrates what the difference in scale I'm talking about.
> why should the artists’ desire for compensation outweigh the desire of audiences to consume the media for free
Because if you disincentivize the artist there are no media to consume. Why should your desire to consume for free deprive me from consuming at all if there is no artist willing to accept such conditions ?
Ancient rome also used lead for everything including pots, pans, pipes and wine, possibly lead poisoned themselves out of existence, so they might not be the best examples to follow.
I'd guess the point is that prior to the invention of the printing press, an "author" would be financed through a patron. That patron could monetize their initial investment by either hiring people to copy a work by hand or allowing access to the book.
Once the printing press arrived the patron / publisher needed another way to monetize their initial investment as modes of reproduction became more easy, copyright became more restrictive.
Depending on your side of the copyright argument, it either allows whomever is making the initial investment (publisher, author) to be a generous patron of human creative progress ... or ... it allows the to maintain a monopoly on knowledge and be able to profit off it.
> * or ... it allows the to maintain a monopoly on knowledge and be able to profit off it.*
The length of modern copyright terms is absurd and harmful.
The USA started with 14 (plus optionally another 14) which was better.
Last I checked - quite a few year ago - I think there were academic papers calculating that an "optimal" copyright term is probably around 10-14 years.
See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright for more information.