Copyright vs Gunpowder and Crossbow

I often write about historical parallels. Because, in my opinion, everything is interconnected: said “A”, and you have already been called “B”; whispered quietly "ZYCH", and in response to the loud "YAT". Copyright in this sense provides a fertile ground for analysis.

Take, for example, one of the most common points on the cloth of standard license agreements - a ban on transferring an object to a third party. If you have never read the agreements (I am supposed to read them by profession), then I would say that this provision is perhaps the most important consequence of your click on “I read and accept”.
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Modern copyright is built on the fact that having bought a disc without the consent of the author, the user cannot copy it, arrange a public display; downloaded online program can not be transferred to a friend. In Article 25 of the Law of Ukraine “On Copyright and Related Rights” this is called “reproduction at home for personal purposes or family circle”. The grounds for this prohibition can be found in the legal and near-legal literature, and therefore I will not quote them. I propose to look back into history.

Story # 1

In the 11th century, during the crusades on the territory of Spain, Western Europeans first encountered the combat use of combustible nitrate-based mixtures in battles with the Moors. It was gunpowder. At the beginning of the XIII century in France, work began on the creation of technologies for the production and use of gunpowder, but soon all of this research was banned by the church, which called gunpowder a “devilish potion”. Knowledge of his secret was sufficient reason to burn at the stake. In 1305, under the Ronda, the Arabs used the first guns, “modfs,” against the Spaniards, who fired walnut-sized lead kernels. The tools consisted of iron pipes welded by forging, attached to a wooden deck. The new weapon showed such combat effectiveness that made Europeans quickly forget the ban on the church. And three years later, during the siege of Gibraltar, Spanish Christians used their own guns.

Story number 2

1139 Europe is mired in wars. Dawn of chivalry. Interstitial clashes are lavishly interlaced with religious conflicts. Pope Innocent II condemned the use of a crossbow. Under the fear of anathema, he indicated that crossbows are deadly, hateful to God, and unfit for war between Christians. Views on the specific wording of the ban vary. Other sources indicate that the Later Cathedral forbade equally the crossbow and the art of archery to be used by Christians against Christians. But it does not matter. The reason was simple - a crossbow (and an English bow) allowed the commoner to kill the knight. All this aristocratic, bathed in the armor of the murderous colony could be struck down by one arrow of a peasant. This completely violated the established picture of the world and the foundations of society. It turns out that now the birth in the right tower of the castle, military training, a horse and doroguschy armor does not guarantee you the power over some shoemaker. The ban was harsh, and even the next version of the pope, Innocent II, confirmed it again.
He brought this ban to an interesting result - all those who were not in a hurry to follow the advice of the pope (and often they were citizens) began to give a fitting rebuff to the royal troops, who relied on knightly might and valor. This greatly accelerated the acquisition of autonomy by cities and the development of modern democracy. The crossbow also became widespread in Eastern Europe, allowing to restrain the domination of the given powers. Crossbow, for example, placed on the emblem of one of the districts of Kiev - Podolsky.

What do these examples of the dense medieval with modern copyright have in common?

And the fact that the ban on private copying and transfer of copyright objects in modern conditions, when information transfer technologies have reached unprecedented heights, looks like the same ban against progress. The motive of the ban is identical - misunderstanding how to handle it, and how to change your established views. Rights holders can not learn how to make money on file sharing, preferring to spend efforts to prohibit and block sites. Driven by the belief that the right to withdraw works from free circulation leads to wealth, right holders in expensive sparkling costumes rush to fight piracy, and fall into the mud, slain by torrents.

The first gaps in armor have already appeared.

By the decision of the European Court of Justice dated July 3, 2012, the court ruled that the user has the right to resell the software, regardless of whether the software was purchased on a hard drive or downloaded from the Internet. To these decisions, the court did not accept the position of Oracle, according to which such a resale violated the terms of the license agreement regarding the use of software. In essence, the generally accepted principle of "software is licensed but not sold," was canceled by the court. But the court recognized that the doctrine of exhaustion of the rights of the right holder after the first sale of the copy is applied to the loaded software.

In this case, the court identified some features: the user has the right to resell a copy of the software only if he himself stopped using this program. Oracle noted that in fact, it would not be possible to control the user. The court replied that to solve this problem there are individual digital keys for software or their equivalents.

It is important that the position of the Court of Appeals of the United States of America is the opposite - he believes that the resale of the software violates the terms of the license agreement regarding the use of the copy (but if we are talking about hard media, resale is allowed). This approach in the United States is also supported by decisions on Microsoft Corp. cases. against Harmony Computers & Elec., Inc. and Adobe Systems, Inc. vs Stargate Software Inc. According to these decisions, in the event of transfer of rights to software under a license agreement, the licensor’s right to sell such software is not protected by the first sale doctrine and, accordingly, is a violation of copyright.

As we see, unlike gunpowder and crossbow, this conflict is in full swing. But, if you look closely, you can see that right holders have to find a way to use torrents and free file sharing in their business model. There are already a lot of examples. About those who do not want to do this, our descendants will learn from history textbooks.