Submission + - Lack of copyright in the 19th century made Germany become the mightiest (spiegel.de)
alexandre_ganso writes: "While the British Empire was at the top of the world, Germany was a agrarian country. Then something changed. Its rapid industrial expansion in the 19th century, according to a German historian, is due to an absence of copyright law, as the massive proliferation of books, and thus knowledge, laid the foundation for the country's industrial might."