Books and DRM

COMP 3851

Historyof Writing

The history of writing is buried deep in our past. The oldest known form of writing developed in Mesopotamia at the beginning of the third millenium BC. This first Sumerian writing evolved from contracts. Stones were used to represent abstract numeric values, and these were encased in a clay ball that was deposited with local authorities until the contract could be completed.

The authorities (usually tax collectors or local officials), marked the clay with (cuneiform) symbols that represented the parties to the contract, the contents of the contract (sacks of flour, sheep), the quantity represented within the clay ball, and the date. This clay ball was then baked for durability. If there was any question regarding the quantity represented, the baked clay orb could be broken open and the encased stones could be counted.

Early Books

Earliest books in the western world were in the form of a “roll”, usually made of sheets of papyrus sewn or glued together. Text could only be written on one side of the scroll (roll), and the reader would roll up the side of the scroll that had already been read, and would unroll the unread side

From our modern perspective this may seem to be a cumbersome way to read, but it was obviously not so considered by the ancient

reader

Scroll to Codex

The codex (paginated book as we know it) was developed in the first two centuries AD as convenience for travelers and libraries, and by 300 AD the codex had achieve parity with the scroll.

Universities and Books

It was the rise in the growth of universities in the 12th and 13th centuries in Europe that lead to increasing demand for books. Students did not have access to the monasteries where previously most early (manuscript) books had been kept, and an increasing demand for non-religious books needed to be met. Stationers and book copiers began to appear, providing paper and libraries of books that could be (manually) copied.

Printing Press

When a student needed a book for a class, she would go to a stationer and copy the book by hand, or pay a book copier to do the work.

Inaccuracies from the “original” were quite prevalent, due to the human error of the person doing the (manual) copying, as well as the fact that the book being copied was also likely a “copy” of (and perhaps several version distant from) the “original”. The increasing demand for books, and the slow speed at which they could be “copied”, led to the invention of the printing press (Gutenberg, 1452)

Books and Security

Chaining books was the most widespread and effective security system in European libraries from the Middle Ages to the 18th century.

Early codex manuscripts were expensive and scarce, and libraries took “medieval security measures” to protect them from theft or loss, physically chaining them to a shelf in the library.

Chained Books

A chain is attached at one end to the front cover of each book, and the other end is slotted onto a rod running along the bottom of each shelf. The system allows a book to be taken from the shelf and read at the desk, but not to be removed from the bookcase.

Privacy and Chained Books

In this environment, the reader was virtually “chained to her desk”, since such books could be read only in the location in which they were stored. Since access to a particular book was only available through a librarian, one had little privacy in such a chained library.

Unchained Books

It would only be after books could be produced accurately and in sufficient quantity to meet the growing demands of the universities that books could be “freed from their chains”.

The manual copying methods of the “scriptoria” (book copiers) could meet some of the demand, and the dormant scriptoria of the monasteries found new life in the business of (manually) copying books for the university needs. But the demand for books far exceeded the capabilities of the manual methods, and needed were mechanical means of mass-producing books

Unchained Books

It would only be after books could be produced accurately and in sufficient quantity to meet the growing demands of the universities that books could be “freed from their chains”.

The manual copying methods of the “scriptoria” (book copiers) could meet some of the demand, and the dormant scriptoria of the monasteries found new life in the business of (manually) copying books for the university needs. But the demand for books far exceeded the capabilities of the manual methods, and needed were mechanical means of mass-producing books

Printing Business

Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press and the use of movable type in the mid 1400s. By the 1470s printing presses were functioning in most of the countries of Western Europe, and by the end of the century every major European city boasted of at least one printing establishment. Still, the appearance of books changed little in the transition from manuscript to printed book.

Early printers more than met the demand for books, producing far more copies than could be sold. Prices for printed books plummeted in relation to those of the equivalent manuscripts, costing 20% of the price of a hand-copied version.

The trade of the independent bookseller quickly arose as the volume of book production increased. Printers and publishers concentrated in commercial centers, and the production and sales of books had become a modern business.

What is Copyright ?

Copyright is a body of legal rights that protect creative works (e.g. books) from being reproduced, performed, or disseminated by others without permission.

The owner of copyright has the exclusive right to copy the work in any form, subject to exceptions (fair use/fair dealing) .

Rights of Holders of CopyrightCopyright Acts generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to do the following:

• To reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords;• To prepare derivative works based upon the work;• To distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or

other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;• To perform the work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic,

and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works;

• To display the copyrighted work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work; and

• In the case of sound recordings, to perform the work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.

• In addition, certain authors of works of visual art have the rights of attribution and integrity

What Works are PROTECTED by Copyright ?

• Copyright protects "original works of authorship" that are fixed in a tangible form of expression. The fixation need not be directly perceptible so long as it may be communicated with the aid of a machine or device. Copyrightable works include the following categories:

• literary works; • musical works, including any accompanying words • dramatic works, including any accompanying music • pantomimes and choreographic works • pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works • motion pictures and other audiovisual works • sound recordings • architectural works

• These categories should be viewed broadly. For example, computer programs and most "compilations" may be registered as "literary works"; maps and architectural plans may be registered as "pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works."

Fair Use

The fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom

use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright

Fair Use

In determining whether the use made of a copyrighted work is considered Fair Use, the factors to be considered shall include– the purpose and character of the use, including

whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes

– the nature of the copyrighted work– the amount and substantiality of the portion used in

relation to the copyrighted work as a whole– the effect of the use upon the potential market for or

value of the copyrighted work.

Blackstonian Copyright

• In his work “Commentaries on the Laws of England”, William Blackstone advocated a

“perpetual common-law copyright of unlimited exclusivity, one that even went beyond prohibiting verbatim quotation for any purpose to preventing imitation of styles or ideas.”

• He claimed that just as the owner of a piece of land has the right in perpetuity to pass the land on from generation to generation, so too should an author of a literary work share the same rights. “He thus analogized ideas, thoughts, and opinions with tangible objects to which title may be taken by occupancy under English common law.”.

• The term Blackstonian Copyright has come to be defined as “sole and despotic dominion over a given work, a right of total exclusion asserted in perpetuity against any attempt to imitate the sentiments, vary the disposition, or derive any social or economic value from a work”

DRM (Digital Rights Management)

Digital Property Rights Language (DPRL) was invented in 1997/97 by Dr. Mark Stefik of Xerox PARC. Xerox patented a large number of “technologies” based on this invention. The first patent, United States Patent 5,629,980, states that it is a

“System for controlling the distribution and use of digital works. …Each right has associated with it certain optional specifications which outline the conditions and fees upon which the right may be exercised.”

Based on its works on DPRL, Xerox launched an independent company, ContentGuard, in April, 2000. Content Guard is now owned by

• Time Warner, Inc• Microsoft Corporation • Thomson

A recent Content Guard Patent (US Patent 6,959,290) is described as “Method and apparatus for tracking states of digital works“ (chained books ?)

The Freedom to Read in Private?

© Peter Steiner, Published in the New Yorker 7/5/1993The above cartoon by Peter Steiner has been reproduced from page 61 of July 5, 1993 issue of The New Yorker, (Vol.69 (LXIX) no. 20) only for academic discussion, evaluation, research and complies with the copyright law of the United States as defined and stipulated under Title 17 U. S. Code.

Google Print Project

• What is Google Print

• The Point of Google Print

• Open Source Print Publishing ?

• CBC Story on Google Print