“Wealthy Romans employed (or owned as slaves) personal librarians and clerks who copied books borrowed from the libraries of their friends. “I have received the book,” Cicero wrote to his friend Atticus, who had lent him a copy of a geographical work in verse by Alexander of Ephesus. “He’s incompetent as a poet and he knows nothing; however, he’s of some use. I’m having it copied and I’ll return it.” Authors made nothing from the sale of their books; their profits derived from the wealthy patron to whom the work was dedicated. (The arrangement—which helps to account for the fulsome flattery of dedicatory epistles—seems odd to us, but it had an impressive stability, remaining in place until the invention of copyright in the eighteenth century.) Publishers had to contend, as we have seen, with the widespread copying of books among friends, but the business of producing and marketing books must have been a profitable one: there were bookshops not only in Rome but also in Brindisi, Carthage, Lyons, Reims, and other cities in the empire.”
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Stephen Greenblatt: “The Swerve: How the World Became Modern”
Who would have thought that the pre-moveable type Romans had a publishing industry based on the expectation of widespread copying and relying on fan patronage for financial support?
(via buzz)
Us: It’s a look into history *and* a fic/art prompt that works as an AU in any fandom!
(via fyeahcopyright)