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Medieval Copy Protection
An anonymous reader writes "In medieval times a 'book curse' was often included on the inside cover or on the last leaf of a manuscripts, warning away anyone who might do the book some harm. Here's a particularly pretty one from Yale's Beinecke MS 214: 'In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. In the one thousand two hundred twenty-ninth year from the incarnation of our Lord, Peter, of all monks the least significant, gave this book to the [Benedictine monastery of the] most blessed martyr, St. Quentin. If anyone should steal it, let him know that on the Day of Judgment the most sainted martyr himself will be the accuser against him before the face of our Lord Jesus Christ.'"
Yeah...because god, the creator and lord of all things, is going to enforce human laws.
Actually, yes, according to the Bible, breaking human laws is wrong, unless it contradicts God's law.
Romans 13:1
Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
No, there is no "-1 I'LL NEVER ADMIT BEING WRONG!!!" mod.
I don't think I'd mind nearly as much if Idle's comments page wasn't so broken....
Agreed. Fortunately, there is a workaround: change the "idle" part of the hostname to some other word. Any story can be served from any subdomain; only the page layout changes. It doesn't even have to be a normal /. host; for example, here's this story in the asdf subdomain.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
No, by the time of Shakespeare there had arisen a sentiment among authors that only they had the right to disseminate copies of their works. Poets of, say, the Roman era didn't care that their works were transcribed from recitals, mass-copied by amanuenses and sold in the agora without any money going back to them. The only time they complained was when people put their own names on the work -- plagiarism, not copyright violation (Martial composed a witty epigram to this effect). Playwrights of Shakespeare's era, however, jealously guarded their scripts and tried to put a stop to the unauthorized copies made by audience members.
The Bible was copy protected, with a prejudice, by the Roman Catholic Church. Smashing printing presses and burning heretics at the steak were quite common ways of making sure only the Priestly caste had access to the Bible.
This is basic Church history learn it love it then leave it.