Where did the idea of copyrights come from?

The printing press was invented in 1440 by Gutenberg. The first law 

about intellectual property was written in the English Statute of Anne in 

1710. (The word copyright itself didn't appear until 1767 in 

Blackstone's Commentary on  the Book of Laws.)  So why did it take three  

centures for the idea of copyright to  arise? One reason is that it took that long 

for literacy to spread and grow enough for printing lots of books and 

sellng them to become a good business proposition. The change was gradual, 

but it  accelerated in the late 1700s with the quickening rise of commerce and 

the middle classes. 

This was one of those cultural feedback loops: commerce raised general 

prosperity,  which spread literacy, which made book publishing good 

business, which in turn fueled commerce and literacy, and so on. 

The idea of copyrighting marked a dramatic moment in history of our 

culture: when a book was no longer just a means to broadcast ideas, 

but was also considered a piece of property that could be owned 

and bought and sold. The reaction among some thinkers was strong:

"No, no, it is too obvious that the concept of intellectual property is useless. My property is exclusively mine; I must be able to dispose of it and retrieve it unconditionally. Let someone explain to me how that is possible with ideas. Just let someone try taking back the ideas he has originated once they have been communicated so that they are, as before, nowhere to be found. All the money in the world could not make that possible."

-- Christian Sigmund Krause, 1783 

Like many people who use the internet sites like SpongeFish to share their ideas, 

music, words, images, videos and blogs today, the fellow who wrote this - Christian 

Sigmund Krause - thought the idea of owning the words and ideas expressed in books 

was ludicrous.   Krause was protesting the idea of intellectual property in general. 

He was particularly offended by the idea that a book was a mere thing 

that someone owned and that couldn't be copied and shared or else you 

could be punished by law.

Krause's salvo was just the beginning of the war between those who want 

information to be free and those who want artists and authors and the 

publishers and companies that  broadcast them to get the fair share of the 

value they produce.  On one side is the enormous worldwide black 

[ or maybe just "grey"]  market for ripping, sharing, bitstreaming, 

mashing up and copying music,  videos, images and texts.

On the other side are the huge publishing and media companies and 

the RIAA. They are in a constant struggle to lock up and protect digital content.

On the one side, too, are the millions of contributors to Wikipedia 

who generously, and anonymously, contribute their knowledge to 

maintain the world's largest and growing open encyclopedia. On the 

other, are equally noble and altruistic artists, musicians and 

authors who eke out meagre livings in the grips of their talents and 

their overwhelming compulsion to create. They deserve to be recognized 

and rewarded for their expression. Many struggle to make that living. 

Most never do.

In between is SpongeFish, which someone called "the MySpace for the Mind,"

where unlike Wikipedia, authors and artists  are recognized for what they know, 

but at the same time get the satisfaction of sharing and broadcasting and seeing 

their expressions reach their audience.