Z:gnu-www-ja-copyright-versus-community-2000--dda75c-Laws that in the past may have/en

Laws that in the past may have been a good idea, now are harmful because they are in a different context. But to explain this, I should go back to the beginning to the ancient world where books were made by writing them out by hand. That was the only way to do it, and anybody who could read could also write a copy of a book. To be sure a slave who spent all day writing copies could probably do it somewhat better than someone who didn't ordinarily do that but it didn't make a tremendous difference. Essentially, anyone who could read, could copy books, about as well as they could be copied in any fashion.