Z:gnu-www-ja-reevaluating-copyright--eee552-So when the public traded to p/en

So when the public traded to publishers the freedom to copy books, they were selling something which they could not use. Trading something you cannot use for something useful and helpful is always good deal. Therefore, copyright was uncontroversial in the age of the printing press, precisely because it did not restrict anything the reading public might commonly do.