Very revealing look at the history of copyright called "Cultural Economics" by Harry Hillman Chartrand. The whole article is available here and it is very well worth reading. Here is the intro and a bit of early history:

The Age of Myth lives! Today's episode, however, is not about George Lucas, Steven King, Area 51, Harry Potter or the delayed Second Coming. It is about a great legal myth (or 'fiction' as members of the Bar prefer to call it). It is the Myth of the Creator summed up in Zechariah Chaffe's words repeated in the prestigious Great American Law Reviews (Berring 1984):

... intellectual property is, after all, the only absolute possession in the world... The man who brings out of nothingness some child of his thought has rights therein which cannot belong to any other sort of property... (Chaffe 1945).

In this article I will explode this myth. I will expose its roots. I will follow up its trunk to the poison fruit hanging from its branches. I will argue that we should no longer eat of this fruit. Rather, we should move deeper into the garden to pluck the fruit from another tree - far from the whispering serpent that corrupted us from the very beginnings of copyright in the English-speaking world.

The Adam of our tale is played by the artist/author/Creator who brings something out of nothingness; our Eve stars the User - public and private, individual and institutional - of copyrighted works; the serpent is the Copyright Proprietor - printer/publisher/producer/multimedia conglomerate - who scammed the first fruit from Adam's hands and persuaded innocent Eve to eat of a now poisoned fruit.

In keeping with myth, fairy tale and legal fiction, Time plays a critical role in the drama. The Past is always present; the Future is but the realization of our present hopes, fears and dreaming. During our tale we will relive revolutions, witness the rise and fall of kings and queens, and rejoice in the final triumph of democracy. We will encounter real life pirates as well as 'privateers' doing digital battle with global media barons for the entertainment and software dollar of citizen consumers while in temples of enlightenment - libraries, schools, universities and colleges - a haggard priesthood struggles to preserve the last flickering flame of 'fair use.' We will consult with seers, witches and wizards about alternative future worlds dominated by:

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