Page 37 - A Study on the Role of UGC Platforms in Copyright Law：An Intermediary-oriented Approach

A Study on the Role of UGC Platforms in Copyright Law: Chapter 2 Copyright in the Pre-Internet Age: An Intermediary-oriented Approach
An Intermediary-oriented Approach

of-mouth continued to be a crucial way to distribute cultural products along with the
dissemination of manuscripts. For example, it was a common practice to hold a dinner party
for a new book and read it after dinner so that the book could become known by the guests,
26
who were often the rich and powerful. At the end of the first century B.C., a more formal
way to disseminate knowledge emerged, called Recitatio, in which an author would read his
27
or her book to an invited audience. After the reading, one copy of the book would be given
to the dedicatee, and other copies would be given to the author’s friends and associates.
28
29
Some copies would be left for free reading. Sometimes the author and audience would
exchange different manuscripts within their social network. Books, poems and other texts
30
acted as a form of social currency to establish and maintain social connections. As the
historian, Rex Winsbury said, this kind of knowledge distribution along social networks
served as the ‘social glue that held the upper class together’. Hence, the creation and
31
distribution of cultural products in the scribal culture were also controlled by a small group
of elites and driven by social-political incentives, as it was in the oral age.
The high cost of transcription, the limited scope of distribution for cultural products and
the effectiveness of social norms suggest that disputes over plagiarism or authorship could be
self-remedied. No additional regulatory scheme was required. For instance, Saint Columba,
a famous missionary and political figure in sixth-century Ireland was exiled to Iona because
he was accused of copying a psalm book written by his teacher, Finnian of Moville, another
famous Christian missionary and scholar. The king who ruled over this dispute said ‘to
32
every cow her calf, and accordingly to every book its copy’, concluding that both the original
33
book and the copy belonged to Finnian.
2.2.2 The printing press, publishing industry and copyright law

In the oral and scribal age, the narrow range within which cultural products could
circulate significantly eliminated the potential for disputes that would emerge in the
34
printing age. This was the primary reason why copyright law was absent. Modern printing
technology and the social change it brought about cut down the cost of disseminating
cultural products, enhanced the demand for printed material, and transformed cultural

26 Ibid 36
27 Jon W. Iddeng, ‘Publica aut peri! The releasing and distribution of Roman books’ (2006) 81 Symbolae Osloenses 58, 58.
28 Ibid 66.
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid.
31 Standage (n 23) 36.
32 Christopher May, ‘The Venetian Moment: New Technologies, Legal Innovation and the Institutional Origins of Intellectual
Property’ (2002) 20 Prometheus 159, 172.
33 Ibid.
34 Though the transition from the scribal to the printing culture was a gradual evolution rather than a sudden revolution, this
thesis chooses the invention of the typographic printing by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century as a focal point that
launches the printing culture. John Feather, A History of British Publishing (2 edn, Routledge 2005) 21.

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