The period from the moment that the first book was copied until the introduction of intellectual property

During the long period from the moment that the first book was copied in ancient times until the introduction of the concept of intellectual property in the seventeenth century, humanity was happily, and freely, copying (and selling, not sharing) the dematerialised information described in paragraph 8, because there was no way for the creator of new information to control the relevant processing operations—therefore control was exercised only over the materialised information (the books themselves). In other words, although there was book commerce at least as early as in Peisistratid Athens, with scribes copying books and selling them (a practice certainly generalised throughout the Hellenistic and Roman worlds), property-like control was exercised on the end-product, the book, and not on the work of the intellect contained therein. Neither Plato nor his philosopher students nor Aeschylus or his dramatist followers were paid for each copy, written by hand on papyrus or other material, of the books they wrote. (Their money was made through teaching or reciting instead.) Indeed, nor was the state of Imperial Rome paid either, each time its laws were copied to take from Rome to any part of its vast empire or elsewhere. The same is true of painting (or music or architecture or industry): the materialisation of information had occurred since the beginning of time, but control was exercised only over the material end-product, not the dematerialised information (Notwithstanding that they could not have been exact copies of the original, certainly in terms of paintings or architecture, albeit less so in music after annotation was discovered). The dematerialised information described in paragraph 8 could be exploited only in its material form, as a tangible thing (a book, a music score, a specially designed jewel, a motto etc.), in spite of everybody acknowledging that it was a(n) (immaterial) Thing. Those who profited were the copiers and manufacturers, not the creators.

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