Re: Coursepacks

From: John Allison <allisonj[_at_]mail.utexas.edu>
Date: Fri, 03 Jul 1998 15:45:09 -0500

On 7/3/98, Tim Arnold-Moore <tja[_at_]mds.rmit.edu.au> wrote:
>
> Gary Newhouse <garyn[_at_]oakton.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Copyright was "invented" as a mans of assuring the continued flow of
> > information for the common good of society. The reserved copy-rights
> > are there to give the creative person (and, by extension i guess, the
> > publisher) incentive to keep on being creative for the good of society.
>
> Actually copyright was invented for precisely the opposite reason. Its
> origins are based on efforts of Henry VIII to keep new ideas from the
> European reformers out of England in 1533. The Statute of Anne in 1709
> moved what had been a copyright for publishers to being a copyright for
> authors, see Donaldson v Beckett (1774) 4 Burr. 2408; 98 E.R. 257. The
> aspect of incentive to authors is a much later invention.

It goes even farther back. Hundreds of years earlier, the Chinese instituted a form of copyright (possessed by the ruling dynasty) for the purpose of maintaining state control over information.

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John R. Allison
The Spence Centennial Professor of Business Administration Graduate School of Business
University of Texas at Austin
Phone 512-471-9435
FAX 512-471-0587
allisonj[_at_]mail.utexas.edu Received on Fri Jul 03 1998 - 20:32:34 GMT