I'm still up, having finished my online discussion. Shouldn't have taken me so long but I was so interested that I started researching more and more. I'm crafting my term paper in my head so it became some exploration of it - I ended up finding out that the first case of copyright law in Ireland was St Columcille in 6th century. How cool is that! OK off to sleep and in work in 4 hours.. arrgh

‘To every cow its calf, to every book its copy’


Heres a piece from my discussion...

In fact the first recorded case of the first case of copyright law in Ireland, and indeed the world, came about from the early librarian St Columcille.  He was no destitute monk having been born of royalty, trained as a poet, philosopher and monk as Herron illustrates in his doctoral thesis (2006) drawing from Kelly’s studies (1998) on the first law schools in Ireland (Brehon/Druidic law).  To summarize, Columcille learned of a beautiful illustrated book that another monk had obtained, and being an expert transcriber asked to be allowed to make a copy but was refused. He made a secret copy (which in itself had to be a feat considering there was no copier invented or printing press to easily do this). The monk Finia, the owner of the original book then on learning of the copy demanded that it be returned and they went to the King of Meath who judged that ‘To every cow its calf, to every book its copy’ and ordered Columcille to return the book - and so is recorded the first case of copyright infringement and judgment against it.  So even in the 6^th century we also see similarities with the digital copyright issues of today. Across different mediums, and generations the concept of copyright is still being debated.