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 ?
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.