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The library was an offshoot of a small club of people called the Junto (src: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_Company_of_Philadelphia... ), which was a small group of people sharing books.


Wait, they were _sharing_ books? Sharing? Wasn't that depriving publishers and authors of revenue? Wasn't that somehow illegal? Damn revolutionary sharers!


The copyright issues caused by book post-scarcity would have been a nice problem to have in Ben's time. In the 18th century, the best printing technology was still the Gutenberg press, which could print about 240 pages an hour. Presses that could scale production to the point of common affordability (millions of pages/day) weren't invented until about the mid-19th century.


Sharing, not copying.


As far as publishers are concerned, there's very little difference.




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