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“Den som har kunskap har makt, makt att förändra sitt eget och andras liv.”

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Many believe that copyright came to be as a result of great insight and almost ???Salomonian??? wisdom in order to create a beneficial climate for culture, both to help poor artists and also to make sure that the masses could enjoy more music, culture and lively happiness.

The truth is as far from that as one could ever imagine.

Copyright (and now i’m talking about the economic copyright, not the “credit where credit is due”) was created as an instrument for censorship against political ????dissidents??? in a time when those were viciously hunted – especially those who confessed to the wtrong religion (the protestants). Many were executed. Others fled the country. Copyright was there to make sure that they could not communicate or reach out with their message. And this was not a side effect, it was the main purpose.

(One might want to keep this in mind the next time anyone claims that copyright is a necessity for freedom of speech, as one swedish politician did quite recently.)

The story begins with Henry VIII. British king. Most people have heard of him. He grew up as a catholic but did not care much for religion at all, he was more interrested in sex. He married a woman named Catherine of Aragon, and they had a daughter, Mary. He eventually grew tired of his marriage and wanted to get divorced, however since Catherine was almost like a protégé of the pope himself, catholic Rome would not allow such a thing.

Henry VIII’s answer to this was quite pragmatic. He gave Rome the ginger, made all of England protestant instead and could then divorce without trouble. He then proceeded to marry five other women and had so many mistresses that historians from time to time still fight about their numbers. In his many marriages, he had one other daughter who reached an adult age, Elizabeth.

Both daughters would eventually succeed him on the throne.

During roughly the same time period printing presses made their first appearences in europe. It is unknown exactly when the first printing press was considered to be finished, but i was some time during the early 1450s. In the year 1480 there was 110 printing presses in Europe whereof 50 was in Italy. The first one arrived in England around 1485.

At this time the concept of copyright simply did not exist. Earlier, if one wanted to copy a certain writing – or manuscript as it was called then (”handwritten script”) – one had to place an order with a ????skriftställare????. The craftsman would close to never produce an exact copy. He would take the opportunity to correct a spelling error here, perhaps introduce an error of his own there, correct facts for noble or not so noble reasons, etc. So when it was suddenly possible to produce tens of thousands of exact copies it was very new and exciting. Everybody were able to publish themselves and so they did. Everybody could could afford it printed everything they could get their hands on. Gallilei. Socrates. Poem collections.

Plagiary – to put ones own name on the work of someone else – did occur. Reversed plagiary – to put the name of a more famous author on your own work in order to have it spread better – was even more common. (See Uncyclopedias article about “how to fabricate a quote by Oscar Wilde”.) In conclution the printing situation was pretty chaotic. Copyright did not exist.

In the year 1553 Queen Mary I became the ruler. She was the daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, Catherine who had been robbed of her title as queen, first to become a princess and later just lady. Mary was not entierly happy with the way her mother had been treated and in particular she was not very happy at all with the fact that the king had made England protestant in order to be able to get divorced. Mary was a proper catholic and took it as her mission to put things back in order.

She initiated a ruthless hunt and slaughter of protestants in the country. Around 300 prominent protestants were executed. The families that could afford it, around 800, fled the country. Far more than that were imprisoned. Her brutality earned her the nickname Bloody Mary.

She was also upset by the way the protestants could get their message out through the new printing presses outside of the crowns and the churches control, but she realized that she could not destroy this opportunity with only the help of the crowns armed men. She needed an ally within the printing industry so she went to londons printing guild – London Company of Stationers – and offered them a deal: they would only print what the crown approved and in return they would get a complete monopoly on printing equipment as well as the lawful right to claim as their own all such equipment in the ownership of somebody else. They would also obtain the right to burn all books that was not printed by Stationers.

Stationers happily agreed because this ment a guaranteed clientele on a highly demanded service. On May 4 1557 they got their ????privilegiebrev??? with the monopoly rights. This also meant that they were made the private censoring agency for the crown and they recieved the full popularity associated with that as well.

Mary was not very successful in her attempts to crush protestantism. She actually died one year later, in 1558, and was succeeded by Queen Elizabeth I. Not only was Elizabeth a protestant, she is also considered one of Englands greates rulers of all times, even today, 500 years later. On the other hand Queen Marys repressive censoring construct remains in effect up until today under the name copyright.

The word itself has its origins in an internal mechanism within the printing press guild. The members within the guild had their own agreements about who had the right to print (”copy”) which scripts, and this was entered into a huge ledger at the London Company of Stationers. Not only did they possess a monopoly as a group in other words. They also had a cartell within the monopoly. In any case it was said internally within the guild that a certain printer had the copyright for a certain script.

One hundred and fifty years later the winds of change were blowing through Europe. A thing called freedom of printing??? had become quite popular and in the year 1688 there was a short but intensive revolution in Brittain. History knows it as “Glorious Revolution” (isn’t it interresting how the winners always write history?). It has also been called “Bloodless Revolution”, a title which ignores the fact that there was at least three big battles in Scotland and some major blood spill in Ireland.

Without discussing the war itself too much one of the results thereof was that parliment got more power at the expense of the crown. The new members of parliment was largely made up those who had earlier been censored by the Stationers – and they were not at all pleased with the concept. Thus the new parliment announced that London Company of Stationers’ monopoly and censoring privilegies would be revoked and freedom of printing???? would once again be introduced in Great Brittain, as it had been before Queen Mary I.

And what happened next shall be dealt with in the next part of this post. You are welcome to continue reading over there.