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The Fifth Information Age

Written by Michael Hart

THE FIFTH INFORMATION AGE

by

Michael Hart

Introduction

We keep hearing about how we are in "The Information Age," but rarely is any reference made to any of four previously created Information Ages, and technology changes that were as powerful in their day as the Internet is today.

The First Information Age, 1450-1710: The Gutenberg Press, reduced the price of the average book four hundred times. Stifled by the first copyright laws, which reduced the books in print in Great Britain from 6,000 to 600, overnight.

The Second Information Age, 1830-1831 (Shortest By Far): The High Speed Steam Powered Printing Press, patented in 1830, stifled By Copyright Extension in 1831.

The Third Information Age, ~1900: Electric Printing Press, exemplified by The Sears Catalog, the first book owned by millions of Americans. Reprint houses using such presses were stifled by the U.S. Copyright Act of 1909.

The Fourth Information Age, ~1970: The Xerox Machine made it possible for anyone to reprint anything. Responded to by the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976.

The Fifth Information Age, ~Today: The Internet and Web. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps even a million, books from A to Z are available either free of charge or at pricing "Too Cheap To Meter" for download or via CD and DVD. Responded to by the "Mickey Mouse Copyright Act of 1998," The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, The Patriot Act and any number of other attempted restrictions/restructures.

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The First Information Age

1450-1710

The one Information Age that gets any references at all is the age of The Gutenberg Press, where more books were made in the first half century of The Gutenberg Press than in a whole previous history of civilization.

However, it should be equally important to point out facts about how The Stationers Company worked for 250 years from the invention of The Gutenberg Press to lobby for laws that would return to them the previous monopoly they had on the entire world of publishing. While failure on failure on failure befell their political machinations, it should be noted that they never gave up even after success was apparent in 1557 with the passage of what I called the "Statute of Mary" turned out to be the passage of laws the people and the state were both loathe to treat as law.

However, another 150 years of intense efforts, culminating in the "Statute of Anne" in 1709-1710, finally created the basis of modern copyright law, in which most of the powers granted were to the publishers, with only a few crumbs for the authors of the works they published. The original law gave all rights to every word ever written in history to a business cartel known first as The Stationers Guild and in later times as The Stationers Company. The new law gave a first copyright term of 14 years to The Stationers Company and a second copyright term to an author, but only if that author was still alive and only of value if the works were still selling well after the initial 14 years.

Needless to say, in the early 1700's, neither case was anything remotely approaching a certainty, and the authors got very little chance to benefit from such a copyright.

Thus The First Information Revolution Bit The Dust

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The Second Information Age

The High Speed Steam Powered Printing Press

1830-1831 (The shortest Information Age on record)

While the 1700's were certainly The Age of Revolution from the point of view of nations such as The United States and, soon after, France, they were not The Age of Revolution for either publishing or copyright; both The United States and France adopted the copyright terms provided to England by The Stationers Company.

Thus the de facto copyright term stood at 14 years with an extension possible for an additional 14 years.

American copyright started with the U.S. Copyright Act, in 1790, which meant that the first decade of a United States best seller list entered into the public domain on January 1, 1829, which prompted the invention of the very first of the high speed steam powered printing presses in 1830.

However, this second Information Age was destined to be so short as to never make it into most history books, as there was such an intense effort by the American publishing lobby that the copyright law was extended in 1831, thus wiping a new Information Age out of existence, almost before it got started, literally.

The American version of The Stationers Company was alive—and well—even though it wasn't officially in existence.

It is hard to believe that a new copyright law should have been enacted to stifle the new high speed printing presses only a single year after the patent was issued.

The fortunes of "ye olde boye networke" were preserved, at the expense of the public domain, and this time instead of a 250 year Information Age before copyright intervened for the sole purpose of preserving "ye olde boye networke," it was an Information Age lasting only a single year.

Thus The Second Information Revolution Bit The Dust

(Footnote: While some view the intervening period from the U.S. Copyright Act of 1831 to this U.S. 1909 Copyright Act as an interruption of copyright extensions due to the U.S. Civil War, others will point out that extensions WERE made to U.S. copyright law in terms of breadth if not length.

One example would be that the Civil War photographs by the likes of Matthew Brady instigated on behalf of publishers, not so much for Brady, himself, the extension of copyright to include photographs and other items previously thought to have been outside the scope of intellectual property.)

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The Third Information Age

The Electric Printing Press

Circa 1900

For millions upon millions of Americans, the first "book" they ever owned was The Sears Catalog, one true revolution in the history of printing.

The Sears Catalog was feasible for three reasons:

1. Revolutions in Printing Technology

2. Revolutions in Railroad Transportation

3. Revolutions in Mail Delivery Standards

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1. Revolutions in Printing Technology

All through the 1800's, in spite of the restrictive legal wrangling that wiped out the first high speed presses the moment they were patented, more and more advances were in the works for making better and better printing presses.

By the end of the century there was a wealth of printings of public domain materials; pretty much anything that had been published before 1858 was being reprinted by 1900 in various "home libraries."

You could buy a home library of hydraulics that contained nearly every great publication on the subject from before 1858 for $10, or on the subject of health, law, etc.

This began the age of truly mass consumption of public domain books, and you can still find these at your local used bookstore.

However, you won't find nearly as many from AFTER 1909 as from BEFORE 1909, and here is why.

2. Revolutions in Railroad Transportation

and

3. Revolutions in Mail Delivery Standards

The combination of extremely inexpensive printing, plus a very efficient transcontinental railroad system, added to the new "Rural Federal Delivery" (RFD) of mail, created a new possibility never before considered:

"The Sears Catalog"

This was certainly one of the most revolutionary books in all of history.

A huge book, 768 pages, lavishly illustrated, and free to everyone Sears and Roebuck could give one to.

Apparently the most famous of these was the 1906 edition.

The problem?

The problem was that this made it totally obvious that it was possible to print and deliver millions of books for a price that was so low the books could be given away, free of charge, just for the purposes of advertising.

This made everyone aware of the changes in publishing prices, and a new wave of "reprint houses" sprung up near lots of railroad stations where those high speed printing presses could literally fill up a boxcar overnight and have it on the rails to anywhere in the country the next morning.

"Boxcars full of extremely inexpensive books!"

NOT what "ye olde boye networke" wanted to hear.

The result was yet another round of intensive lobbying to create the U.S. Copyright Act of 1909.

Once again, just as in 1831, the new technologies were no match for the trump cards held by "ye olde boye networke", which had been previously used to stifle The Gutenberg Presses and the high speed steam presses.

Thus The Third Information Revolution Bit The Dust

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The Fourth Information Age

The Xerox Machine

Pretty much everyone takes the Xerox machine for granted, even in Third World countries there are plenty of Xeroxes, at least for those who can afford them.

What we do NOT take for granted is that along with Xerox, came yet another copyright extension, once again trying a "reactionary politics" approach to stifle the advent of a new way of bringing information to the masses.

The oddest part, of course, is that the publishers' claim, such as it is, is that the new technologies will harm the sales of their products, but the LAW they proposed is NOT a law to enforce the protection of their copyrights but a law to destroy the protection of the public domain!!!

Each one of these four revolutions in printing technology has been countered by a law that was not designed to make a system for the protection of private property, but that was designed rather for the destruction of public domain, so that no one but the publishers could benefit from each new revolutionary technology that COULD HAVE BROUGHT BOOK BENEFITS TO THE WORLD AT LARGE FOR A MINIMAL PRICE.

The reason for this unhealthy alliance between publishers and politicians is that the politicians realize that their constituencies are much more easy to manipulate when kept in ignorance, that an educated public is the enemy of the corrupt political system, and what more corrupt politicos than those of U.S. President Nixon's terms in office.

Thus it was that the Xerox machine was counteracted in an even more extreme case than previous copyright extensions with the elimination of copyright renewal requirements on copyrights that were never renewed 90% of the time, even though the process was trivial and the fee was nominal.

The U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 was started during Nixon's time in office and carried out by his appointees after he left office in disgrace.

U.S. copyright had been extended from an average of about 30 years in 1900 to an average of 75 years in 1976, a far worse defeat for the public domain than ever before.

Thus The Fourth Information Revolution Bit The Dust

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The Fifth Information Age

The Internet

I'm sure more of you are aware of The Computer Revolution than of The Xerox Revolution or The Steam and/or Electric Press Revolutions, and probably even more of you than are aware of the real impact of The Gutenberg Press; example:

Were you aware that we might well have never even heard a word about The 95 Theses of Martin Luther if his friends hadn't taken them to the local Kinko's du jour and mailed the copies to other people in other countries?

The same sort of thing just happened recently when a very highly placed newsman, Dan Rather, anchorman, head editor and who knows what else of CBS News, was forced to resign by true nobodies who brought his lack of attention to the form (but not the content) of the letter describing a lot of bad behavior by President Bush.

With every new medium comes a new class of people, not of "ye olde boye networke," who adopt that new medium before "ye olde boye networke" is even really aware of it.

Once ye olde boyes ARE aware they do their best to stifle the new medium to only include their paid representatives who toe the official party line.

Hence the