Medieval Copy Protection

An anonymous reader writes "In medieval times a 'book curse' was often included on the inside cover or on the last leaf of a manuscripts, warning away anyone who might do the book some harm. Here's a particularly pretty one from Yale's Beinecke MS 214: 'In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. In the one thousand two hundred twenty-ninth year from the incarnation of our Lord, Peter, of all monks the least significant, gave this book to the [Benedictine monastery of the] most blessed martyr, St. Quentin. If anyone should steal it, let him know that on the Day of Judgment the most sainted martyr himself will be the accuser against him before the face of our Lord Jesus Christ.'"

FBI warning

[donnyspi]

They should put message at the beginning of movies instead of the stupid FBI warning thing.

Anti-theft device, not copy protection

[decipher_saint]

I think it would be pretty kick-ass to have some Saint materialize and lay on some whup-ass to would be thieves.

*gasp* THE BISHOP!

No wonder

[boristdog]

No wonder my crops failed and there was a rain of toads on the farm after I downloaded "Superman III".

Re:That's not copy protection

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot: where we don't bother reading the summary, let alone the article, when writing the headline.

Re:FBI warning

[InsertWittyNameHere]

I love how even those of us who are in Canada have to sit through the FBI warning. And Canadians have to sit through it twice (English version then French).

They should use warning from The IT Crowd.

Re:::facepalm::

[Anonymous Coward]

You're just upset because Moses yelled at you for building the golden calf.

Re:Two actually

[Pojut]

"Coveting your neighbor's goods is what keeps the economy going! Your neighbor gets a vibrator that plays 'O Come All Ye Faithful,' so you want to get one too." -George Carlin

Holy Cow

[2names]

'In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. In the one thousand two hundred twenty-ninth year from the incarnation of our Lord, Peter, of all monks the least significant, gave this book to the [Benedictine monastery of the] most blessed martyr, St. Quentin. If anyone should steal it, let him know that on the Day of Judgment the most sainted martyr himself will be the accuser against him before the face of our Lord Jesus Christ.'

That is the longest password I've ever seen.

Re:Public domain

[Anonymous Coward]

Any chance it's in public domain by now, or does Sony have involvement in this also?

You can tell it's a Sony Bible if opening it puts a rootkit in your soul.

Re:::facepalm::

[Flea of Pain]

Yet someone stole that and wrote it down in a little book called the Bible. Perhaps he should have included some DRM on his tablets...

Re:::facepalm::

[Translation Error]

Ahem... that one _is_ one of God's laws: "Thou shalt not steal". Written in stone, no less.

The first version was written on papyrus, but someone walked off with it.

Re:That's not copy protection

[socsoc]

Can you fork it? Can you modify it? Can you sell it?

Nope, you can walk into any bookstore and get the original untranslated version, and only that, for free. There aren't any other versions allowed and nobody ever sells it.

Re:That's not copy protection

[poetmatt]

is this supposed to be your first step? If so, posting on slashdot doesn't count on abandoning it.

Re:That's not copy protection

[__aasqbs9791]

I thought there were no lawyers allowed in heaven by definition?

Re:FBI warning

[HermDog]

If you illegally copy "Twilight" you're cursed with a copy of "Twilight"

Re:Public domain

[maxwell demon]

I thought that was a common functionality of all bibles?

Re:::facepalm::

[pushing-robot]

Some scholars believe that God's ultimate intention for that was to establish the need for a large, majestic container to store them in, and thus prepare the way for the eventual creation of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Re:That's not copy protection

[Anonymous Coward]

Some even started giving bibles away, in order to educate the masses.

Bwahahahaha, he said "educate"!