English: Even before the birth of copyright laws in the strict sense, there already existed systems for the control over information reproduction which gave the owners of copying equipment a stake in cultural production. Moglen sketches the history of copyright law as a form of industrial regulation, and analyses how the changes in technology have thrown the roles created by those laws into crisis. Where once control resided in the physical artefact itself, digitalization has forced the law to step in and control access rather than just copying.