Liner notes, hand
illumination and leather bindings are nice, but they pale in
comparison to the ability of an individual to actually get a
copy of her own.
Which isn't to say that old media die. Artists still
hand-illuminate books; master pianists still stride the boards at
Carnegie Hall, and the shelves burst with tell-all biographies of
musicians that are richer in detail than any liner-notes booklet.
The thing is, when all you've got is monks, every book takes on
the character of a monkish Bible. Once you invent the printing
press, all the books that are better-suited to movable type
migrate into that new form. What's left behind are those items
that are best suited to the old production scheme: the plays that
*need* to be plays, the books that are especially lovely on
creamy paper stitched between covers, the music that is most
enjoyable performed live and experienced in a throng of humanity.
Increased democratic-ness translates into decreased control: it's
a lot harder to control who can copy a book once there's a
photocopier on every corner than it is when you need a monastery
and several years to copy a Bible. And that decreased control
demands a new copyright regime that rebalances the rights of
creators with their audiences.
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