Medieval Control Over Information

The printing press was an important step towards the democratization of knowledge. Within fifty or sixty years of the invention of the printing press, the entire classical canon had been reprinted and widely promulgated throughout Europe (Eisenstein, 1969; 52). Now that more people had access to knowledge both new and old, more people could discuss these works. Furthermore, now that book production was a more commercial enterprise, the first copyright laws were passed to protect what we now would call intellectual property rights.

Books' changes through time

This is how the Medieval Bible looked like:




This is how it looked after the printing revolution:



And that is one of the many ways the bible and various other books can be read nowadays:

The Greatest Invention Ever

Did you know that printing with 

wooden made types were used 

in the East since the 8th century?

The Origins of Printing Press