Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Which was not at scale I doubt you are playing here with a good-faith definition of “at scale”. In any event, copying of works for sale in Antiquity was certainly of scale, we know that many literary works spread quickly across the Mediterranean through commercial production. Furthermore, some of the earliest printed books were made in such limited editions that Roman mass production can certainly be compared. The…
> I doubt you are playing here with a good-faith definition of “at scale”. I could say the same thing about you because you make it sound like the appearance of some works in various places on the map is equivalent to their vast abundance. > development of the printing press is generally viewed in contrast to the medieval manuscript era that immediately preceded it If you skip renaissance. > As for going to a show an…
As I said, historians know that some popular works not only appeared across the map quickly, they were commercially sold in the marketplace such that the educated class was able to purchase their own copies of prominent recent works with, of course, no money going back to the creator. Again, I don’t think your definition of “abundance” is good faith.
With regard to your last point, why should the artists’ desire for compensation outweigh the desire of audiences to consume the media for free, or other artists’ desire to rework prior art for free? This is a moral debate that is quite culturally dependent, and though you want to claim that your views are the right ones, that just won’t fly on a forum as international as HN. Many posters on HN grew up with pirated DVD and cassette/CD stands at the market (some might even still have them where they live), or in their countries Bittorrent or now pirate streaming sites are things used by ordinary people.