[breck]

I recommend picking up "NYTimes complete front pages" from ~1850-2000. You can see for yourself how the news was so much more intelligent in the 1800's.

What happened?

In 1909, 1976, and 1998, Congress greatly expanded copyright. Instead, they should have done the opposite, and abolished it. It's mathematically dumb, and is the root cause of our toxic information environment.