> http://www.macedition.com/soup/soup_20000627a.shtml > > "Intellectual property law can be traced back to Ireland in the fourth century, where renegade bishop St. Columba snuck into Old Man Finnean's library and copied his psalter by hand, and then gave copies out for free to local churches. Finnean had an absolute fit, and dragged Columba's ass to court, which meant King Diarmit's royal court. The King decreed "To every cow its calf, to every book its copy", and fined St. Columba 40 head of cattle for making an unauthorized copy. Here's the deal, though: Finnean of Clonard didn't write the psalter in question, which is a book full of psalms, he just owned it. The issue decided by Diarmit was about allowing the wealthy and powerful to control the flow of knowledge, and allowing the commoditization of information."

According to Blagden in his 'Law and History of Copyright in Books,' (1899) this story has its modern source in 'Moines de l'Occident' by Montalemebert and was regurgitated by Putnam in 'Books and their makers during the Middle Ages' (1896). He goes on to claim that it 'has been voted unworthy of belief. Apparently the Psalter that Columba was supposed to have copied was on display in the Royal Irish Academy until at least 1867.