[Coco] Republishing Magazines

[Gene Heskett]

On Saturday 27 December 2003 21:35, jdaggett at gate.net wrote:
>The idea of intelectaul property was born out of the changing ideas
> from the invention of movable type and the printing press. We moved
> from a bardic system to a society that finally started to write
> down the tales of the spoken word. While many of the legends and
> stories of old were written down, they were in but limited texts
> and not widely dispersed throughout Europe. Other societies had
> books but still all were hand copied and with great care. All
> required time to reproduce.
>
>For many millenniums the thought of plagarism and the ownership of
> the written word was considerably different from modern times.
> Often it was in the highest honor to write and ascribe your work in
> the name of your mentor and teacher.

One could say that there was honor among thieves I guess.  But more 
likely it was to ascribe some greater level of veracity to the 
writings if you could claim that they were first proposed, or 
composed, by some even more famous individual than yourself.

> Much of the current Christian
> Bible is written in that way. The five books of the Torah are
> ascribed to Moses yet clearly there are five disticnt styles of
> writting within the Torah. The book of Isaiah has three distinct
> styles.

Oh yes.  But please bear in mind that in the evolution of a language 
that inevitably takes place over the millinea(sp) since they were 
originally written, that many copies have been made due to aging of 
the original parchment or whatever media was used.  Each of these 
copiers had a natural tendency to "bring the language up to date" and 
this has resulted in different interpretations than what the original 
author wrote, particularly in the Old Testament.  I give you the 
biblical book of Ezekial as an prime example.  And even in the New 
Testament, its very obvious to me that two things have been done, one 
being that much of the sexual stuff has been excised by well meaning 
but uninformed individuals who didn't realize that it was part and 
parcel of everyday life then as now, and two, that Revelations as it 
exists today in no way resembles what John wrote 2 thousand years 
ago.  I'm not even convinced that John understood what it was he was 
recording at the time he recorded it.  That of course would make the 
job of those doing the copying, probably 10 or more times in the last 
2 thousand years, even more difficult to translate into something 
with similar meaning in todays languages.  Who knows but what there 
may be an original copy of Revelations in the Dead Sea Scrolls, one 
that could improve upon the "reproduction" considerably.  But, since 
the Vatican only allows selected "scholars" to study them, its 
unlikely we'll see a good translation in my remaining lifetime.  
Particularly if that would shake the foundations of the Church as the 
vatican see's it.

>  It was when books could be turned out in weeks instead of
> years that it became realizable that one can profit on the writing
> of books. Prior to the press only a few of the wealthy and the
> clergy read books. Even King John of England was illiterate when he
> signed his "X" on the Magna Carta.

>The press brought a revelation that more needed to read in order for
> profit from the new invention. It brought about education for the
> masses. They then could now read the works of the ancient authors
> and the new authors that were created with modern books.
>
>james
>
>On 27 Dec 2003 at 10:27, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
>> At 08:48 PM 12/26/03 -1000, Alex wrote:
>> >Remember also that the purpose behind the creation of the concept
>> > of intellectual property c.1600 was to encourage its creation,
>> > while simultaneously ensuring that it would benefit society at a
>> > whole.
>>
>> At the time it was to benefit the new and burgeoning publishing
>> industry. Before that, in the era of one-of-a-kinds, hand copies,
>> etc., there was no real issue. But following movable type's
>> introduction, and other new printing processes, it became
>> necessary to be able to secure the exclusive work of an author
>> against the competition. This made for many issues between the
>> Italian and German publishing industries (for example), with
>> separate laws in the countries.
>>
>> But its main feature was to define the fruits of the mind as
>> property.
>>
>> Now look where it's got us! :)
>>
>> Dennis

/me, steps up on soapbox...  And it doesn't have anything to do with 
copyrights, really.

The rise, and now the fall, of american industrial dominance in the 
world is, IMO, directly related to the literacy of the population.  I 
had the great good fortune to have attended the grammer schools of 
the State of Iowa in a period when they were still teaching phonetics 
as a method of disassembling a word to figure out what that word 
meant, and as a tool to invent new words as required.  Now I observe 
the people around me that are only 10 years younger, and because 
phonics was falling out of favor, were forever cheated out of a good 
FUNCTIONAL education, and cannot read the evening paper even if the 
writing was perfect, which its a far cry from now.  Until such time 
as we go back to really teaching our replacements how to actually 
read, we are going to be a third rate country in another 25 years.  
We have turned from producers, to consumers.  The balance of trade 
certifies that.  

The Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and the Indians have I believe 
understood that only by hard work and studies will they succeed, and 
they are doing so at a pace that says the next space power will be 
the Chinese, no question about it.  You may think that we rule in 
semiconductors, but thats only because the company has an american 
name and roots.  The people actually doing the cutting edge work at 
Intel or AMD have oriental roots, and as soon as the fabrication 
process can be controlled, its all shipped offshore for the actual 
production.  Partly because those folks *want* to work and do a good 
job, and partly to get away from the EPA/OSHA.  A lot of the 
chemicals used in semi fabs are bad enough to make potassium whatever 
it is that only takes one whiff to kill look like table salt.  Many 
with long term cumulative effects, like arsenic.  Or the various 
Flourine based gases, even worse...

Darn, my soapbox just collapsed.  Have a Happy New Year folks.  And 
teach your kid phonics!  I don't care how you do it, but do it.  
He/she/it will grow up to be a success at whatever they want to do.  
The schools won't do it, not when they are built by the lowest bidder 
and then run by a beaurocracy like NASA, who has no budget to do it 
right today, not even for decent maintainance.  But you can bet the 
agency will survive, yessiree Bob, with new carpets in the upper 
offices every year, yessir!  Even when the crawlers have many broken 
wheel bearings each, I've seen them first hand.  Shamefull.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
AMD K6-III at 500mhz 320M
Athlon1600XP at 1400mhz  512M
99.22% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly
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by Gene Heskett are:
Copyright 2003 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.