Copy-me and an animated debate

"Copy-me Ep. 3 is now complete!" is the first line of an excited message from Alex Lungu, who writes to let us know that Episode 3 of Early Copyright History is now available to view (you can access this seven-minute episode via its web page here). As Alex explains:

It features censorship, hangings, dissent and criticism, a whole bunch of state and church control, angry queens, sad Stationers, and, of course, our terrible culprit: the printing press.

Copy-me is the world’s first ever animated web series about copyright, copying and open culture. The webseries is about originality, public domain, digital copies, artists and how they can make money, and lots more. We hope our episodes will bring some light to these issues and maybe start a much needed constructive debate.

From the name Copy-me and some of the text that appears on the Episode 3 page,

"We should always remember that early copyright history is an important aspect of the copyright debate. On the one hand, history shows us that copyright was designed for control more than anything else and that the state got away with this for over two centuries. On the other hand, businesses always feared new technology and lobbied for state protection, with arguments about authors’ safety. These two sides have always lurked in copyright’s underbelly and, over the course of three more centuries, managed to erode all the public good that copyright was primarily designed to promote",

one might take a reasonable stab at guessing the position taken by the clip's producers with regard to copyright.  That said, it's good to know that the ancient debate between pro- and anti-groups continues apace and this website provides both provocation and some "know your enemy" source materials for those who assume that copyright in all its forms is somehow above criticism.