99percenters:

Copyright is a term which, the name would imply, means that someone has the rights to copy something. But, who has the right to Copy, what can they copy, how much, when, why, where, and every other interrogative you can think of.

If we look at the cave in France where perhaps a Cro-Magnon painted his handprint, or painted early bison, IF that man (or woman) had left their name..they would be immortalized in the history of art. They would NEED NO COPYRIGHT.

Jumping forward in history, did Michelangelo get screwed over in the recognition department by having someone else rip off his claim to fame about the Sistine Chapel, or statue of The David ?  And did Leonardo DaVinci have to worry about Joe Schmo ripping off his “Mona Lisa” ? No. Apparently, early masters didn’t have a lot of problem with the lack of copyright protection. Here, centuries later, we still remember the excellence of their works, and yes, WITHOUT COPYRIGHT PROTECTION.

So, when and where did this Copyright bullshit start ? Many trace it back to the Statute of Anne, or the STATUTE OF QUEEN ANNE. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne Some also call it the Copyright Act of 1709. It was the first copyright law in Great Britain, and as you may be aware, this poor country borrowed much of its laws from Ye Olde England.

Basically, the Stationer’s Guild had enjoyed a monopoly which had been given to them by Queen Mary the First, in 1557. But, the licensing act (Licensing Act of Charles II) expired around 1694 or 1695.

Quoting (under Fair Use) from the Wikipedia article, we read :
”Under this regime, company members would buy manuscripts from authors but once purchased, would have a perpetual monopoly on the printing of the work. Authors themselves were excluded from membership in the company and could not therefore legally self-publish, nor were they given royalties for books that sold well.

The statute of 1709 vested authors rather than printers with the monopoly on the reproduction of their works. It created a 21 year term for all works already in print at the time of its enactment and a fourteen year term for all works published subsequently. It also required that printers provide nine copies to the Stationer’s Company for distribution to the Royal Library, the libraries of Oxford, Cambridge, St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh, Sion College and the Faculty of Advocates library in Edinburgh.^{[citation needed]} When Ireland united with Great Britain in 1801, Trinity College and King’s Inns in Dublin were added as two further depositories.”

The Stationer’s Guild, was one of the “Big Businesses” of the time, and Queen Anne, as well as Queen Mary I, were the government. So, Queen Mary had made a Faustian bargain with big business, but it ultimately expired, and during Queen Anne’s reign, the power to “copyright” was shifted from those who printed the books, to those who wrote the books.  When the Stationers held the copyright rights, they established them by writing in a Register, and only a member of the company could write in the register. The idea was to protect the rights of the printer, the publisher, and not the author…in today’s terms, the author would be the “content creator”.

Many believe that the ORIGINAL draft of the Statute of Queen Anne was penned by no less a person than Jonathan Swift, of Gulliver’s Travels fame.

Now, interestingly, despite the changes of the Statute of Queen Anne, big business (The Stationer’s Guild) continued business as usual, refusing to acknowledge the rights of the authors, and in essence, sending up a grand “F U” to authors (content creators). But, despite their efforts to “influence” Parliament to give THEM the exclusive rights they had previously enjoyed, and thus, much like the Copyright Cartels of today, they went whining to the Courts. 

They appealed to the Court claiming they had “traditional” and/or “ancient” rights to the copyright of the works. The Stationers tried to bring a case before Lord Mansfield, until the fallacy of their arguments was discovered. But, they continued in their ignoring of the rights of authors, and eventually, the Statute of Queen Anne, which had shifted rights of copying to authors, fell out of use, and again, the publishers were getting rich by maintaining the rights to copy.

Jumping forward, we have a nice brief history of Copyright here:
http://wikieducator.org/Brief_History_of_Copyright 

Now, many people are confused about how a Copyright of a work is created.
Now, we are NOT talking about Registration of that Copyright, but the establishment and creation of the Copyright.

Here is what the US Copyright Office says :
”Do I have to register with your office to be protected?

No. In general, registration is voluntary. Copyright exists from the moment the work is created. You will have to register, however, if you wish to bring a lawsuit for infringement of a U.S. work. See Circular 1, Copyright Basics, section “Copyright Registration.” 

Why should I register my work if copyright protection is automatic?

Registration is recommended for a number of reasons. Many choose to register their works because they wish to have the facts of their copyright on the public record and have a certificate of registration. Registered works may be eligible for statutory damages and attorney’s fees in successful litigation. Finally, if registration occurs within 5 years of publication, it is considered prima facie evidence in a court of law. See Circular 1, Copyright Basics, section “Copyright Registration” and Circular 38b, Highlights of Copyright Amendments Contained in the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA), on non-U.S. works. “

So, as I am writing this original work, I am establishing a copyright as each unique line is created. 

Now, what we have going on in the World, especially in the United States, is something akin to “COPYRIGHT MADNESS” with teams of FBI agents going across the world in search of some guy who had a business by which people can send files to each other. They are establishing what amounts to a WAR against alleged copyright infringers…alleged because our system assumes innocence til proven guilty. This truly is madness, is destructive, and threatens to criminalize millions of Americans in a time when we need people working and building a stronger economy, not being enslaved to the copyright nazis.