Ancient Times: Scrolls, Scribes & Codices

Before the printing press, people routinely made copies of manuscripts, by hand. In some places, called scriptoria, (including the famed Library of Alexandria, and Cassiodurus’ Vivarium Monastery), crews of scribes churned out copies for large libraries and personal collections. Copious copies ensured the proliferation –and preservation- of knowledge.

Around 300 B.C., a disciple of Plato (c. 423-347 B.C.) made a grave faux pas. He sold copies of his master’s work. While the Greeks had no issue with making copies or selling them without permission, they did feel that commerce was not a fitting activity for a philosopher’s pupil.

25 B.C. - 100 A.D.: at the height of the Roman Empire, publishers and booksellers flourished. By making copies and selling them, the businessmen often saved the author the immense expense of copying and distributing their own work. Here’s an interesting description of Rome’s bookstores, (this 1841 resource is now part of the Public Domain).

In 567 A.D., an Irish monk named Colmcille (known later as St. Columba of Iona for converting Scots to Christianity), commits the first official act of copyright infringement. Colmcille copied part of the Abbott Finnian’s copy of the Latin Bible (The Vulgate) late at night, and without permission.

• Colmcille’s Argument: Learned men like us, who have received a new heritage of knowledge through books, have an obligation to spread that knowledge, by copying and distributing those books far and wide. I haven't used up Finnian's book by copying it. He still has the original and that original is none the worse for my having copied it. Nor has it decreased in value because I made a transcript of it. The knowledge in books should be available to anybody who wants to read them and has the skills or is worthy to do so; and it is wrong to hide such knowledge away or attempt to prevent me or anyone else from copying it or reading it or making multiple copies to disperse throughout the land.

• Dairmaid, the Irish King at Tara, ruled that Colmcille was in the wrong: I don't know where you get your fancy new ideas about people's property…someone who owns the parent-book also owns the child-book. To every cow its calf, to every book its child-book. The child-book belongs to Finnian.