Johansson says Sam Altman asked her in September 2023 and she said no. OpenAI says Sky is a different actress using her own natural voice, hired before anyone contacted Johansson, and The Washington Post’s review of the casting records lines up with that timeline. We trace it back to 1988, when Bette Midler won her case against Ford over a soundalike: “A voice is as distinctive and personal as a face.”

In this episode:

• What happened between Scarlett Johansson and OpenAI
• Who voiced Sky, and what the casting records show
• Sam Altman’s one-word “Her” post
• Is your voice protected by law in the U.S.?
• How Midler v. Ford (1988) compares

As of recording: no court has decided anything. Johansson alleges OpenAI went after a voice like hers after she said no, and OpenAI denies it. She has not sued, OpenAI has paused Sky, and a federal bill to protect voice and likeness is still pending in Congress.

©1710 is a five-minute history of copyright, from the printing press to AI. Sources and transcript are in the show notes.

Narrated by Claudette, an AI voice from the ElevenLabs Voice Library. Researched and written with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Produced by Royall. For information and entertainment only, not legal advice.

The first work registered was The Philadelphia Spelling Book, entered by a schoolmaster named John Barry on June 9, 1790. One legal historian calls the law “almost identical” to Britain’s Statute of Anne, with one American addition: protection was for citizens and residents only, and Section 5 said in writing that reprinting foreign authors was fine.

In this episode:

• What the Copyright Act of 1790 covered, and what it left out
• The first work ever registered for U.S. copyright
• How you registered a copyright in 1790: a court clerk, sixty cents and four weeks of newspaper notices
• Why American law allowed reprinting foreign authors
• How few works were registered: fewer than 800 of more than 15,000 in the first decade

©1710 is a five-minute history of copyright, from the printing press to AI. Sources and transcript are in the show notes.

Narrated by Claudette, an AI voice from the ElevenLabs Voice Library. Researched and written with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Produced by Royall. For information and entertainment only, not legal advice.

After the Revolution, copyright was left to the states, and twelve of them passed twelve different laws. James Madison put “literary property” on his list of the union’s problems, and that summer in Philadelphia the Convention approved one sentence on it without any recorded debate. The sentence lets Congress create a right, with a purpose and a time limit attached.

In this episode:

• What the Copyright Clause actually says
• Why the word “copyright” isn’t in the Constitution
• Noah Webster, Connecticut and the state copyright laws of the 1780s
• James Madison, Charles Pinckney and the proposals of August 1787
• What “limited Times” means, and the 1998 “Mickey Mouse Protection Act” fight

©1710 is a five-minute history of copyright, from the printing press to AI. Sources and transcript are in the show notes.

Narrated by Claudette, an AI voice from the ElevenLabs Voice Library. Researched and written with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Produced by Royall. For information and entertainment only, not legal advice.

For five years after a 1769 ruling, English courts treated copyright as permanent. Then a Scottish bookseller named Alexander Donaldson reprinted James Thomson’s poem The Seasons anyway and appealed all the way to the Lords, where Lord Camden called the London booksellers’ precedents “a heterogeneous heap of rubbish.” The Lords reversed the injunction, and six days later the booksellers were asking Parliament for their right back.

In this episode:

• What Donaldson v. Becket decided
• The 1769 King’s Bench ruling that made copyright permanent for five years
• Lord Camden’s “cobweb chains” speech
• Why the famous vote count doesn’t hold up
• How the case made the public domain real

©1710 is a five-minute history of copyright, from the printing press to AI. Sources and transcript are in the show notes.

Narrated by Claudette, an AI voice from the ElevenLabs Voice Library. Researched and written with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Produced by Royall. For information and entertainment only, not legal advice.

William Hogarth’s A Harlot’s Progress sold more than twelve hundred subscriptions in 1732, and at least eight pirated versions followed. The Statute of Anne only covered books, so he and six other artists petitioned Parliament, calling themselves “opress’d by the tyranny of the Rich.” Then he held back his next series, A Rake’s Progress, until the law was in force.

In this episode:

• What Hogarth’s Act was and what it protected
• Why the Statute of Anne didn’t cover pictures
• How Hogarth cut out the printsellers by selling on subscription
• Why A Rake’s Progress waited for the law
• “An equal Right to every Subject”: why you can own your version of an idea but not the idea

©1710 is a five-minute history of copyright, from the printing press to AI. Sources and transcript are in the show notes.

Narrated by Claudette, an AI voice from the ElevenLabs Voice Library. Researched and written with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Produced by Royall. For information and entertainment only, not legal advice.

London’s booksellers went to Parliament asking for permanent ownership of the books they printed. They came away with fourteen years, “and no longer,” plus a second fourteen-year term that went back to the author, not the bookseller. We get into what the law actually did, including nine free copies for libraries and the Archbishop of Canterbury ruling on overpriced books, and what people still get wrong about it.

In this episode:

• What the Statute of Anne was and why it’s called that
• How a booksellers’ bill “for Securing the Property of Copies in Books” turned into a time-limited right
• The 14-year term, the author’s second term, and the 21 years for older books
• Why the law didn’t actually hand control to authors
• How a 1710 British law became the foundation of U.S. copyright

©1710 is a five-minute history of copyright, from the printing press to AI. Sources and transcript are in the show notes.

Narrated by Claudette, an AI voice from the ElevenLabs Voice Library. Researched and written with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Produced by Royall. For information and entertainment only, not legal advice.

Around 560, the Irish monk Columba is said to have secretly copied a borrowed book of psalms, and a king ruled against him: “To every cow belongs her calf. Therefore, to every book belongs its copy.” The battle that followed was real, but nobody wrote down the part about the book until 1532. From there we go to Gutenberg’s press, Venice handing one printer a monopoly on “the entire art of printing,” and the London guild that held printing rights for about 150 years while John Milton got five pounds up front for Paradise Lost.

In this episode:

• Was St Columba’s copied psalter really the first copyright case?
• What the Cathach is and why it’s called “the Battler”
• How Gutenberg’s printing press made copies worth fighting over
• Venice’s 1469 printing monopoly and the first author’s privilege in 1486
• The Stationers’ Company, John Locke and the end of the Licensing Act in 1695

©1710 is a five-minute history of copyright, from the printing press to AI. Sources and transcript are in the show notes.

Narrated by Claudette, an AI voice from the ElevenLabs Voice Library. Researched and written with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Produced by Royall. For information and entertainment only, not legal advice.