How old is the public domain?
Posted by Doug Tue, 03 Jun 2003 20:09:00 GMT
It’s a long path to get to me, but Lessig’s Blog recants a story found in The Invention of Printing in China, by Thomas Carter (1955) about the first book every printed. On page 56 Carter says,
The book consists of six sheets of text and one shorter sheet with woodcut, all neatly pasted together so as to form one continuous roll sixteen feet long… At the end, printed into the text, is the statement that the book was “reverently made for universal free distribution by Wang Chieh on behalf of his two parents on the 15th of the 4th moon of the 9th year of Hsien-t’ung.”Designated Universal Free Distribution from day one.
