stackyFACTSBefore the Berne Convention, publishers freely pirated foreign books because local laws didn't apply across borders. To stop this glorious era of cheap literature, states banded together to enforce international copyright, ensuring that authors and their wealthy publishers could legally monopolize ideas on a global scale.
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When copyright was initially formulated, it was designed as a very brief, strictly temporary monopoly to encourage creation before the work swiftly entered…
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Imagine electing a senator by picking a name out of a hat. In ancient Athens, most government officials were completely shielded from democratic voting and…
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Even if two countries sign a formal treaty agreeing to hand over criminals, the actual process is riddled with so many political caveats that it is…
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Modern legal systems owe their existence to a sixth-century emperor who got so frustrated with contradictory laws that he hired scholars to compile them into…
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Taking over an entire sovereign nation usually requires a massive formal treaty, but lawmakers were heavily impatient. In 1898, pro-annexation politicians…
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Political debates often get intensely heated, but 14th-century British lawmakers took it to an entirely literal extreme. The 'Statute Forbidding Bearing of…
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