Medieval Copy Protection: I Put A Curse On You
from the probably-more-effective dept
Slashdot points us to this wonderful blog post on the Got Medieval blog about how monks and scribes in the middle ages "copy protected" their books with "book curses" inscribed within the book.I almost wonder if those were more effective than today's DRM attempts.
The blog has a nice image of one such curse, but here are a couple that I find amusing:
Should anyone by craft of any device whatever abstract this book from this place may his soul suffer, in retribution for what he has done, and may his name be erased from the book of the living and not recorded among the Blessed.Perhaps the most clever one though, is described as follows:
--attributed to a 16th-century French missal belonging to a man named Robert
Thys boke is one
And Godes kors ys anoder;
They take the ton,
God gefe them the toder.
[This book is one (thing),
And God's curse is another;
They that take the one,
God gives them the other.]
--found in various Middle English books.
But far and away my favorite curse is found in a collection of English court transcripts made by William Easingwold around 1491. It takes the form of a clever Latin code. If you read the top two lines together it says "May he who wrote this book procure the joys of life supernal", but the bottom two together produce "May he who steals this book endure the pangs of death infernal" (Drogin's translation). I don't have an image of the manuscript, but this is a close approximation:All of this reminds me of an even older story of books and attempts to stop copying, which we wrote about last year, concerning Saint Columba -- also known as Colmcille or Colum Cille -- who in the 6th century, decided to copy some religious books in an attempt to "share" the faith with others. He did so with a Latin translation of the Bible and it created quite the mess, with a debate over the legality of copying a book, and whether or not it counted as "property." You see, these arguments aren't particularly new...
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Filed Under: books, copy protection, curses, drm, medieval
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And the Bible.
And again,, SO ?
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Re: And the Bible.
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Stealing the actual book - not copying it.
As for the St Columba story I think we have had this argument before - and as far as I remember the outcome of my researches of the original sources was that the "copyright" interpretation of the tales is a later invention - orignallly based on efforts of the owners of an early manuscript to establish its link to St Columba and later embellished (possibly more than once) in order to attempt to score points in early debates about copyright.
The original duispute - and battle were over the death of a child that St Columba had sworn to protect.
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Re: Stealing the actual book - not copying it.
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Re: Stealing the actual book - not copying it.
I remember a case where a judge had managed to wrongly attribute an apparent quote supporting copyright to the saint when the quote in fact appeared to be from the guy prosecuting the saint. It would not surprise me if the whole thing had already been distorted to further an agenda.
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So historically most content creators want some IP protection.
So there was a need for copyright and content protection throught history.
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Re: So historically most content creators want some IP protection.
Nope - please read my comment above.
Those curses were written by copyists - not authors - trying to protect the physical copy from being stolen.
Btw I prefer the Jennings version, where responsibilty for the loss is transferred to the book itself:
"If this book should dare to roam, box its ears and send it home
to..."
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Re: So historically most content creators want some IP protection.
So there was a need for copyright and content protection throught history."
Facepalm! Wow...what awesome sophistry powers you have, my friend. Let's try another couple of examples based on your logical principle:
1. For time eternal, carnivores (including humans) have always wanted to kill and eat whatever other living creature they could find. So there was a need to legalize the killing and eating of anything and everything throughout history.
2. For time eternal, men have always wanted to be able to have sex and get copious amounts of oral sex performed on them whenever and wherever they want. So there was a need for women to be forced to perform these actions throughout history.
3. For time eternal, people have wanted to freely share things. So there was a need for free sharing throughout history.
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Anyone that speaks ill of my books will be crippled by the mythical Cubs Curse. Basically you suck for 100+ years....
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Re: So historically most content creators want some IP protection.
Those are no copy protection methods. And I agree that there is a "need for copyright and content protection" since some centuries ago, but before the invention of the press (and the invention of professional editors) no one seemed to have any need for such.
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Re: So historically most content creators want some IP protection.
This is why you should let your brother Larry do all the speaking for you.
Firstly: need?
Secondly: content protection?
The warnings were about the physical removal of the books, not that someone would come in with quill (bone?) and parchment (animal skin?) and copy the pages.
Thirdly: the "protection" still didn't work. Most books have been "stolen" from their rightful home.
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Serfdom
And other things always ended badly.
Copyright is just another form of control that will fail.
"However, the main call of the peasant rebels was for the abolition of serfdom. This was because, since the middle of the century, their lords had prevented them from making the most of the changing economic conditions. Visitations of the plague since 1348/9 had reduced the population by between a third and a half. As a result, labour became more scarce, wages rose and the economy began to suit the peasant more than it suited the landowner. However, the landowners of Parliament legislated to keep wages low and to restrict the free movement of serfs. Locally, landowners in their capacity as manorial lords also tried to tighten the feudal dues that serfs were obliged to carry out for them. Needless to say, the peasantry resented both these measures and there were local revolts both in the decade before and after 1381. Hence, the rebels attacked symbols of lordship and lordly authority, such as manors and manorial records."
http://www.britannia.com/history/articles/peasantsrevolt.html
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I Bet
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Modern copyright curses
Disclaimer: The following story contains naughty bits. If you are under 18, or if this has somehow wandered onto the K12 net, STOP READING NOW. Do not, I repeat, do not email it to all your friends. And for God's sake do not make a printout of it and distribute copies all over your school. I mean sure, it'll be cool and all, and you'll probably have lots of new friends, and you'll probably even get lots of dates which will lead to numerous nights of hot, sticky backseat passion, but like, you could get in big trouble. Cause I know a kid who did it and sure, it was cool for awhile, but all the new friends he made weren't like *real* friends. Plus like, it's all fully and legally copyrighted and if you think you're so tough now, let's see how you feel after a few months in the joint sharing a cell with a disgruntled former Kinko's employee with something to prove. Copyright prison--you wouldn't last a day.
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Stealing, Not Copy Protection
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Of course, only the legal copy will have the eraser with it, so... um...
I'm going to put a leprechaun in the book and have him shoot spitballs at your eyes. Yeah, I'm bricking your eyes, biatch!
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Attack of the mutant camels
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I'm free!
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Not copy protection!
"Should anyone by craft of any device whatever abstract this book from this place..."
In context, abstract is a verb; it means 'take away' not "a short, precise summary."
In other words, these are prohibitions from stealing books from libraries. I thought modern librarians were people I didn't want to mess with. Who knew their medieval counterparts would damn people to hell for stealing tomes?
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Take a history lesson
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Don't say you were not forewarned.
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