---------- From: Ken Brown[SMTP:k.brown@ccs.bbk.ac.uk] Reply To: Ken Brown Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2001 7:01 AM To: Steve Schear Cc: Phillip H. Zakas; cypherpunks@lne.com Subject: Re: napster: civil disobedience re: copyright laws

Steve Schear posted:

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Far more harmonious was the relationship between copyright and censorship in that era. Men burned at the stake for writing texts that were critical of the Crown or of established religion. The stationers' copyright regime was part of the apparatus aimed at ensuring that these texts would not be printed or otherwise be widely accessible to the public.

Which men, in England, were burned at the stake for "burned at the stake for writing texts that were critical of the Crown"?

Decapitated maybe, but not burned at the stake... definite revisionist history in the making here.

Ken

Well, there's one, but it's a bit of a stretch: William Tyndale. He was burned at the stake for publishing the New Testament in English in 1536, two years after Henry VIII had made himself the head of the Church of England with the Act of Supremacy. It can be reasonably argued that at that time the Crown and Church were one and the same in England, and an offense against the State Religion was an offense against the State. However, it's generally true that burning was reserved for religious offences (including witchcraft), the axe for acts against the Crown, and hanging for other criminal cases. [Just 2 years later, Henry ordered the production of an official translation into English, known as the "Great Bible"]. Peter Trei