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The History of PublishingThe History of Publishing
by Michael S. Hart
Inventor of Electronic Books
Founder of Project Gutenberg
Publishing as we know it began with Johannes Gutenberg some 555 years ago
with the invention of the moveable type printing press.
The Gutenberg Press, as it was called, changed our history as much as any
event since the fundamental inventions of language and writing along with
fire, the lever, the wheel, agriculture and weaponry.
TIME magazine and a host of others selected Johannes Gutenberg as The Man
of the Millennium, due to the effects of his invention, which were great,
indeed, in many ways beyond the world of publishing.
In many ways Gutenberg was responsible for:
Interchangeable Parts
Mass Production
Industrial Metalurgy
Compound Leverage
The Renaissance
The Scientific Revolution
The Industrial Revolution
and today I hope that his namesake, Project Gutenberg, should be equally,
if possible, responsible for similar gains in the Third Millennium.
Censorship, the Other Side of the Coin of the Realm of Publishing
Since the very dawn of publishing, one of the most obvious reactions from
the power elite has been to stop people from publishing.
Tearing up printing presses, along with legal censorship, has existed all
throughout the history of publishing, and it continues in the headlines I
see today in the form of publishers such as Google and Yahoo kowtowing to
China's tradition of censorship of news and politics, just so they can do
do business in the largest national market in the world.
"Situational Ethics" is the newly coined term for such ancient behavior.
Starting with The Catholic Church, arguably the most powerful world force
in Gutenberg's world, the publications and censorships of religious views
have played a major part in the history of publishing.
Martin Luther, who protested against the misuse of this power, creating a
"Protestant Revolution" as a result, might well never have been heard of,
had it not been for The Gutenberg Press, as it was his friends who took a
copy of his "95 Theses" to the local "Kinko's du Jour" and made copies to
be sent to people in other countries. Otherwise it is relatively certain
the copies Luther had written himself would have made little difference.
While The Catholic Church didn't know how to deal with Martin Luther in a
right here and now immediate sense, they did start committees to look for
ways to deal with this new phenomenon, and started the foundation of what
we call censorship today.
These traditions continue today via a number of institutions. At the end
the last season of South Park, The Catholic League seems to have censored
the rebroadcast of the season finale, "Bloody Mary," which lampooned much
of The Catholic Church's iconography, and perhaps kept it from appearing,
ever again, even in the DVD collections.
This is particularly notable since South Park belongs to Viacom, a larger
media corporation than nearly any other in the world.
So, just in recent months, we have seen how media giants are still victim
to political and religious censorship pressures, even in the cases of the
corporations we rely on for our news and information. As you extend your
point of view beyond these last few month, the horizons broaden.
[I should add here that behind closed doors most American journalists and
media personalities will freely admit that there is a much larger percent
of stories that are never covered due to these pressures than anyone will
ever likely realize. Some estimates from these indicate that a one story
in three being "pulled" for these reasons is the best estimate.]
This practice officially began, and ended, with the famous or infamous:
"Indices librorum prohibitorum" = "Index of Prohibited Books" = "Index"
and
"Indices expurgatorii" = "Instructions for Purging"
Hence creating the term "Unexpurgated"
In addition, the practice of the rulers was to have translations of books
rewritten in a light more favorable to the rulers and with literacy rates
so low in their own languages, added to an even lower literacy rate for a
foreign language, it was easy to pull the wool over the sheep's eyes.
A quick look at the censorship of Vergil's "De Inventoribus Rerum" shows,
among other things, that censorship was rampant after The Gutenberg Press
to an unprecedented degree:
Vergil's "De Inventoribus Rerum"
Prohibited Index 1565
Prohibited Index 1627
Prohibited Index 1711
Expurgated Editions
Rome 1585
Lyon 1586
Florence 1587
Index Expurgatorius
Brisighella 1607
Sandoval 1619
Sotomayor 1640
Expurgated Copies
Augsburg Edition 1575 (Basel, Guarinus)
Freiburg Edition 1553/55 (Basel, Isingrin/Parcus)
Tubingen Edition 1597 (Lyon, Gryphius)
[See dbs.hab.de/Polydorusvergilius/ portal-texte/text_06_e.htm]
Scratching the Surface of the History of Censorship
Obviously this was not the first example of The Catholic Church involving
itself with censorship, the goes back to the very founding the The Church
via "The Council of Nicea" in 325, when the books of Arius and others are
listed as having been ordered to be delivered up and burned on penalty of
death, and this was followed by orders of various popes, and ecumenicals,
for even more books to be burned.
In 405 Pope Innocent started a list that became known as "The Roman Index
of Forbidden Works" labeled "Decretum Gelasianum."
However it was not until 1515 that Pope Leo X issued the Papal Bull named
"Inter Sollicitudines," which became:
"The first papal censorial decrees given for the entire Church
which was universally accepted. All writings without exception
were subjected to censorship."
To bring this story full circle, we should note that in 1520 a Pope Leo X
Bull entitled "Exsurge Domine," forbade the writings of Martin Luther and
included not only everything he had ever written, but future works at the
time yet unwritten.
This is the foundation of various laws prohibiting "prior restraint."
It should be noted that The Vatican Libraries contain many of these in an
exclusively secret collection.
Even as late as those who used The Gutenberg Press, people were burned at
the stake for publishing prohibited books.
This takes us up to the Inquisition which you are probably familiar with,
and we should concentrate here on The History of Publishing rather than a
History of Censorship. Suffice it to say that the history of censorship,
book burnings, even the burnings of those who preserved such books, even,
as in Gutenberg's time, the burning of the authors and publishers, is big
beyond comparison when compared to the history of publishing since we saw
the advent of The Gutenberg Press.
Censorship. . .or. . .Copyright
One of the best ways to censor anything without being too obvious is that
practice we know today as "copyright."
Copyright law was started by yet another large media corporation, perhaps
the largest of Johannes Gutenberg's time. . .The Stationers Company.
The Stationers Company and the various Stationers Guilds were examples of
multinational corporate structures a millennium before the multinationals
of today even invented the term "multinational corporation."
The Stationers and scribes had a virtual monopoly on the written word the
likes of which has never been known, and they had it for virtually all of
written history. . .if you wanted something written down, you had to hire
one of them. . .unless you were one of the 1% elite who knew how to write
something yourself, and were willing to spend the time and effort.
One of the most important effects of The Gutenberg Press was that persons
outside the power elite finally learned how to read and write; something,
I should add, that did not sit well in the stomachs of those who would be
more comfortable being the only source of information.
This was the way it was, not just in The Catholic Church, but in walks of
life for everyone. . .when something was written down and intended for an
audience of the masses, the audiences gathered in a central location, and
someone read the words to them. The Catholic Mass wasn't so different an
event than a mass meeting in the town square to have the proclamations of
the ruler read aloud to the people, sometimes with great fanfare, but the
opposite was sometimes also true, where the agents of the ruler would put
up posters in the middle of the night, and everyone would awaken to rules
that had literally. . .been changed overnight.
Copyright. . .Laws That Change Overnight
When The Stationers Company finally succeeded in have their new copyright
law passed after 260 years of dismal failures with Henry VIII, Elizabeth,
and all the monarchs of the period from 1449 to 1709, they manage to take
the total number of books legally published in the United Kingdom from an
estimated 6,000 down to an estimated 600.
9 out of 10 titles simply vanished from the bookshops overnight in a raid
on publishing the likes of which had never been seen before.
All of the book burners in history had never removed as many books!
In the 1900's copyrights laws again changed overnight, three times!
Each time the world we live in lost one million such public domain books
that could now be placed on the Internet free of charge.
The average copyright went from ~30 years in 1909 to ~95 years in 1998--
89 years in which copyright was extended 65 years leaving only a quarter
of that century's output untouched by the new copyright regimes. Only a
book published after 1922 can be surely in the U.S. public domain.
Other countries have also extended their copyrights, sometimes in ye old
way as did The Stationers Guild, books available in the bookshop one day
were made illegal the next day, right now in modern times.
For a more detailed look at "The Five Information Ages" or the copyright
laws that were created to stifle them, please see the separate essay.
http://pglaf.org/~hart/
For now, let us just say that there have been five inventions that would
have brought information to the masses in unprecedented ways:
The Gutenberg Press Countered by The Statute of Anne, in 1709
The Steam Powered Press Countered by The US Copyright Act of 1831
The Electric Powered Press Countered by The US Copyright Act of 1909
The Xerox Machine Countered by The US Copyright Act of 1976
The Internet/World Wide Web Countered by The US Copyright Act of 1998
Five Information Ages that might have been much more.
How These Copyright Extensions Affect Us Personally
When I was in grade school we studied slavery, believe it or not, and my
school was required to see "Gone With The Wind" and "Song Of The South."
Under the copyright laws in place at the time, the longest copyright was
allowed to be nearly 57 years. Gone With The Wind was made in 1939, and
Song Of The South was made in 1946, so under the copyright law they were
made according to, and all contracts and payments made according to, the
copyright should have expired by now, and I should be able to send you a
copy of both of these movies so you could see what I was REQUIRED to see
when I was growing up.
HOWEVER, the current copyright situation is such that, if you take a kid
to see a new movie today, or buy them a book, or expose them to any of a
host of copyrighted works, that kid, even if only 5 years old today will
not have a life expectancy long enough to expect to see the copyright on
those works expire.
This is intended to cause a "disconnect" between the past and present to
keep the people in the present from knowing too much about the past.
If you really think this is a result of the profit motive, just look the
incomes of these movies up, then tell me that you think another 20 years
of re-release of these movies is going to add more than 1-2 percent from
what they have already made.
You have to understand that all these copyright extended works were sold
in contracts based on 56 year copyrights, and that when Ted Turner could
buy Gone With The Wind for a Song Of The South, this was based on a fact
that everyone expected the copyrights to expire shortly thereafter.
Only they didn't!
56 years after 1939 was 1995, but Gone With The Wind never expired.
56 years after 1954 was 2000, but Song Of The South never expired.
The truth is that if copyright extensions keep on, as both U.S. Congress
and Supreme Court have asserted they can, then Ted Turner's profits on a
purchase of thousands of movies will never cease. . .ever.
Now perhaps you can understand that billion dollars Mr. Turner gave as a
gift to the United Nations, under whose umbrella operates:
The World Intellectual Property Organization or WIPO, who writes up an
awfully lot of the copyright laws we live under.
As "Deep Throat" told Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in the movie ads
for "All The President's Men". . .
"Follow The Money"
The Current Chapter In The History Of Publishing
More books were published in the first 50 years of "The Gutenberg Press"
than in all previous history. . .millions upon millions. . .in a frenzy,
a frenzy that was literally impossible before Gutenberg's invention.
Of course, the purists and elitists denied that these were "books" in an
obviously traditional sense, but the public ate them up and the literacy
rates doubled and redoubled and doubled again.
The same is currently happening with eBooks.
More eBooks will be created in the first 50 years of a Project Gutenberg
public history than were printed in all previous history.
It is well within the realms of possibility that Project Gutenberg could
give away a Quadrillion eBooks before 2010 much less in 50th anniversary
celebrations from July 4 through August 4, 2021.
Can We Give Away One Quadrillion eBooks Before 2010 ???
We Are Now Trying To Reach 15% of the World's Population
If we can manage to give the average eBook to 15% of the
world population, not unthinkable, that would be a grand
total of 1 quadrillion eBooks given away.
15% of the world population = ~1 billion people
1 million books to 1 billion people = 1 quadrillion books
For those who hate it when I use large numbers, it still
can't be helped when the possibilities are this great.
I simply refuse NOT to mention that we could give out an
order of a quadrillion eBooks in the next three years if
it is actually staring us in the face.
The current schedule of The World eBook Fair cosponsored
by Project Gutenberg and The World eBook Library is:
2006 1/3 Million eBooks
2007 1/2 Million eBooks
2008 3/4 Million eBooks
2009 One Million eBooks
Give those one million eBooks to just 15% of the world:
ONE QUADRILLION eBOOKS GIVEN AWAY!!!
And that is not even counting Google, Yahoo, The Library
of Congress eBook projects, etc., AND, not even counting
the last 12 years to make 50 years of eBook history.
There are already one billion people using the Internet,
and by then it could easily be two billion, and billions
more by 2021.
The possibilities for eBooks today are as staggering for
the modern minds as the possibilities of Gutenberg books
were for the medieval minds of Johannes Gutenberg's day!
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