I was sitting around the campfire with the other cavemen.
"Thog," I said, "sing us a Song of the Hunt!"
"No way," said Thog. "You'll just steal it. And then give it away it to all your friends."
I said "That's the point, Thog."
"Stories belong to the Tribe. You tell us, we tell our friends, they tell their friends. Pretty soon Boccaccio gets ahold of it. Then Chaucer and Shakespeare."
Thog said "But what's in it for me? Caveman gotta eat."
I said "Applause, Thog. Cheering. You sing us a good Song, as we sit around the campfire, and we all clap."
"Stupid anti-artistic Neanderthal brute," Thog said to me. "You can't eat claps or cheers."
I said "You got clamshells on the brain. You can't eat them either. There are economies of respect, economies of good will, economies of prestige."
Thog said "No way. No clamshell, no Song. That's the way I work."
I said "Tell you what. I'll trade you a Magic Software for your Song."
Thog said "No way still. You cast an Artistic License spell on your Softwares. Makes them worthless in the clamshell trade."
"I don't know how you Software Wizards eat, giving stuff away for free like that."
"Free as in free speech" I said, defensively, my stomach growling a bit. "Not free as in free beer. Free as in free beer is just a side effect."
"What's beer?" said Thog. "Sounds pretty good."
I was considering how to explain the benefits of Agricultural Revolution to a member of the paleolithic Artist Class, when Loana the Wizardress spoke up.
"General Public License, not Artistic License. It's a better spell."
"Shut up, Loana," I said, inflecting my voice. "You are Clan of the Gnu. I am Clan of the Pearl. Thog will get confused about needless detail. Thog, being a Singer and Storyteller, would want a Creative Commons spell anyways."
Loana the Wizard glared at me, moving her mouth without sound. Then I felt a sudden throbbing and stabbing pain in my neck.
"This is useless," I said. "And painful."
"In honor of Loana the Merciful and her Clan" I said, clutching my neck, "let's go paint some Gnus on the walls of the cave! The paintings will belong to all the People, for all time and forever. How cool is that?"
"Come with" I said to Thog. "We could charge some clamshells at the cave entrance. Have a teeshirt and merchandise booth. You sing, we paint, and we share the proceeds. 20% to me as promoter, though."
"No one goes to events like that anymore," Thog said, with some dejection.
"Not since the discovery of the smaller Magic Picture Tablets. Everyone stays in their own cave, all the time, holding the things in their lap. I think they contain a very evil spell."
I was considering how to explain that a Singer might learn to use the suggestive Magic in the Tablets, that the Tribe might leave their caves to go see a live Singing, when Loana the Wizard managed to speak up.
"I feel a very strong spell of my own coming on," Loana said. Then she fell into a trance.
After a time, she began to chant:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
"Songs and Stories and Softwares still belong to all the People," she said. "But the maker can now get some clamshells at the start. Limited-time special rights. I call it 'Copyright'. A subtle and powerful spell."
"Now let's go do that Painting and Singing show in the cave."
(circa 1300 a.d.)
When we got to the cave, Disney the Malevolent cackled.
"You didn't specify 'limited Time,'" in the spell, he thought.
"One million two thousand and ten years special dibs on the Mouse" he said out loud. "Because I invented it."