>The power of the US state in terms of direct impact on citizen's lives is vastly higher than any king ever was.
Yeah, no. The kings could simply deprive you from your busyness without any trial. They could simply prohibit you to do busyness without any law, since their word was the law. They granted monopoly rights to close and loyal people, so that the whole industry could be subjugated to a single person because he was granted a monopoly right.
>Early copyright privileges were called "monopolies," particularly during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, who frequently gave grants of monopolies in articles of common use, such as salt, leather, coal, soap, cards, beer, and wine. The practice was continued until the Statute of Monopolies was enacted in 1623, ending most monopolies, with certain exceptions, such as patents; after 1623, grants of Letters patent to publishers became common.
It's ridiculous to compare a contemporary liberal democracy to a monarchy in terms of interventionism.
The king had relatively little power to enforce said monopoly grants is whats relevant here, no matter what status the law supposedly gave them. So in abstract terms they might be more invasive, the actual impact of said policy was much less.
Yeah, no. The kings could simply deprive you from your busyness without any trial. They could simply prohibit you to do busyness without any law, since their word was the law. They granted monopoly rights to close and loyal people, so that the whole industry could be subjugated to a single person because he was granted a monopoly right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law#Early....
>Early copyright privileges were called "monopolies," particularly during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, who frequently gave grants of monopolies in articles of common use, such as salt, leather, coal, soap, cards, beer, and wine. The practice was continued until the Statute of Monopolies was enacted in 1623, ending most monopolies, with certain exceptions, such as patents; after 1623, grants of Letters patent to publishers became common.
It's ridiculous to compare a contemporary liberal democracy to a monarchy in terms of interventionism.