Xavier is, of course, also here, and has been wearing a Ring of Sustenance on the opposite hand as his Ring of Counterspells since he was made a captain. (The purpose of noble estates is to allow officers to obtain wildly more expensive gear than they otherwise could; all else is vanity.) 

Korva's super well-rested, which is to say that no screaming babies woke her up in the middle of the night.

"What's this about?"

"Ah, Delegate Tallandria. There's going to be a censorship bill passed. We would all prefer it not say 'nothing may be published without the approval of the royal board of censors, which doesn't exist yet'. The Archduke and I met last night to put together a draft we think can pass, which is no more restrictive than it needs to be."

He nods.

(Quim vanishes to go tell everyone else who was watching for Tallandria that they can stop watching. And then probably look for the religious delegates on the committee, they can guess that's the next order they'd get.)

Oh no. - the Archduchess is probably not lying, unless she was playing some complicated game before by suggesting a right to speech, which now that she thinks of it is totally the sort of thing you ought to expect Archduchesses to do.

Whatever. They're asking her. "Can I see it?"

"Of course."

In recognition of the enormous harm that has been, and is ongoingly, done by the publication of vile slanders, insinuations, radical materials, and advocacy both mistaken and malicious:

    It is forbidden to publish or distribute written material in Cheliax unless it is marked with an Arcane Mark of the creator or publisher and a note of the Statute under which it is permitted, of which six are henceforth enumerated, with the Queen or a future legislative body permitted to add others. A work is considered kept private as long as it is not distributed outside a small audience, not read in a public square or public house, not put on display outside a private domicile, and not made available for sale. Some work is permitted as long as it is kept private, which is not permitted to be published or distributed.

    Firstly, all material is permitted by the First Publication Statute of Cheliax if the publication of the material is permitted under the law in those Chelish provinces and allied states where the Rule of Law is strong, that is presently Lastwall, Molthune, and Osirion, and the material is not modified from the version distributed in those countries, notwithstanding a direct decree of the Queen to the contrary. Material which has been permitted under the law in other friendly states with similar laws, currently Absalom, Galt, and the Thuvian city-states, for a period of five years without its legal status being challenged is also permitted under the same conditions.

    Secondly, material is permitted by the Second Publication Statute of Cheliax if the material is published by a licit and authorized publishing house, and marked with an Arcane Mark on each page of a copyist registered with that publishing house, that it may be attributed to a man who is fully legally liable for any lawless consequences of its distribution.

    Thirdly, material is permitted by the Third Publication Statute of Cheliax if the material contains no political, social or religious commentary, and would not be identified by any reasoned observer to be attempting to make a political, social or religious argument; for instance it is a book of Accounts, a book of Recipes, a book of Apothecarie, or an announcement of an event (the latter being permitted presuming the event to be itself permitted, and illicit if the event is a lawless gathering). It is unlawful to mark a book as permitted under this statute if it adopts the form of a book of Accounts, Recipes, etc. to make a political, social or religious argument; in any case where a work is even ambiguously of political, social, or religious effect it must seek authorization under some other statute.

    Fourthly, material is permitted by the Fourth Publication Statute of Cheliax if approved by any board of censors appointed by the Crown. No such board exists and this Law does not create one; but should one in the future be created any materials it authorized would be legal under this Law.

    Fifthly, the right to know the Law being fundamental to a Lawful society, any book or printing of the Law in which the law is not abridged or modified is legal under the Fifth Publication Statute of Cheliax.

    Sixthly, in order to protect our existing booksellers from bankruptcy, works of at least twenty pages originally published before Sarenith 1 4714 are permitted with conditions. Wizards not authorized as publishers may put their Arcane Marks to such works under the Sixth Publication Statute of Cheliax and make further copies, which they may Personally sell, so long as their purchasers keep such works private and do not resell them. Resellers violate the Sixth Publication Statute unless they have the works authorized under another statute first. Works which have been outlawed by a decree of the Crown or law from a future legislative body, such as the Asmodean Disciplines, lose this protection from the date the decree or law is promulgated.

    For a publishing house to obtain authorization to publish in Cheliax, it must have a single, identified proprietor, in whose name the license is issued, and who acknowledges the following:

    He is a Subject of Her Majesty and means to abide by Her laws

    He has placed a bond of Six Thousand Gold Pieces against the possibility of chaos and destruction brought about by the works he publishes, either with the state or with the Church of Abadar, which will be returned to him thirty days following the closure of his publication house unless damages result, and seized to pay damages should damages result;

    He is further liable for damages from the works he publishes if they exceed Six Thousand Gold Pieces, and is liable up to the seizure of all of his properties, and if capital crimes are incited by works he publishes, he is liable for death;
    'Damages' in this statute refer only to harms monetary and personal that result from the publication being determined slanderous or libelous, or from Lawless acts which the publications advocated, directly or by implication; enabled, by instruction in how to carry out or evade detection for a lawless act, including harms resulting from lawless acts that the publication enabled by making it known that some other individuals had called for violence, or predicted it, or believe the gods to advise it, or believe it would solve Cheliax's ills, or by any other phrasing suggest it to the advantage of another person to commit criminal acts.  Should a publication cause monetary damages by some other mechanism than inspiring, encouraging or enabling criminal acts - for instance by the promotion of a business at the expense of a competitor-  the publishing house shall not be liable.

    The distribution or copying of works which are not marked with an Arcane Mark indicating under which statute they are authorized, is henceforth illegal, and punishable with 30 days' imprisonment, a fine of up to 1gp per page of illegal commentary distributed, and liability civil and criminal for all illegal conduct inspired by those works. Falsely marking a work as authorized under a Statute which does not permit its distribution is henceforth illegal, and punishable with the destruction of the spellbook used to so mark the work, with a sentence of up to hard labor, with a fine of up to 1gp per page of illegal commentary distributed, and liability civil and criminal for all illegal conduct inspired by those works.

    The possession of works which are not marked with an Arcane Mark indicating under which statute they are authorized, is legal, if those works are kept private. Personal correspondence, personal notes and records, transcripts of the meetings of the government at any level and in any form (incl. city councils, constitutional conventions, legislatures of a town, city, or larger area where they exist, &c), transcripts of sermons, business records, &c, may be produced and copied without authorization, provided they are kept private.
    
    The possession of works which are marked with an Arcane Mark indicating under which statute they are authorized is legal, even if that mark was made contrary to the law, except where directly forbidden by decree of the Crown.

It's probably unfair to call the publishing house measure completely useless; people did publish things under the old regime, too, even though it was risking your life then, too. Of course, then there was a censorship board, and it was actually possible to know which of the things you were selling were legal, which is absolutely not to say that all of them were. 

She has absolutely no expectation that Osirion or Lastwall allow anyone to say more than a tiny subset of things worth saying. Molthune... might. The shining beacon of hope on the countries list is Absalom; she's heard that Absalom has a giant library of nearly all the books in the world, and she doesn't believe it because that's impossible but it still, you know, might have a bunch of books that everyone else finds unimportant.

...realistically, the worst case is just a return to underground histories, with an effective death penalty for distribution, although it sounds like we're officially doing life slavery instead of execution (they don't execute you for being unable to pay a fine, right?). But that sucks. Though all of the current books will at least stay legal to own, so at least some hope remains of saving them.

"What does it mean for a work to have been published before the first of Sarenith? I mean - suppose a non-wizard owns a book, and has owned it for a year. Can he go to a wizard and have it marked, or give it to the wizard to make a copy from, and then take a copy in exchange? Or is the protection for existing works only for those currently in the possession of wizards, and only to be copied by those wizards, or for only some subset of texts that wizards have?"

"I admit I wrote that part mostly thinking of the merchants who bought expensive stock and would be ruined, not just annoyed, to lose them. Certainly keeping the existing copy is legal under the second-last clause, which should do for most personal collections. But I think the plain reading permits them to bring it to any wizard who will trust their word that they bought it before now, and for that wizard to make copies and sell them to anyone. ...That may be more permissive than I thought, actually. Which isn't a bad thing, unless it gets the law voted down."

"Hm. But then if the wizard is found to be incorrect about when the work was originally created, they're liable and their spellbook is destroyed?"

"Yes. There might be a truth spell involved in the 'trust your word' step."

"We can live with that. Does private use include borrowing books, without paying for them or making a copy? - actually, can you make personal copies of borrowed books, if you don't share them?"

"I think if it ever reaches a court the judge has an hour-long debate between the attorneys about whether or not it's sufficiently widely spread to be 'distribution.'"

"...so it's not legal to borrow a book from a friend."

"It is legal to borrow it, it is not legal to borrow it and make copies, making 'may be lent so long as copies are not made' explicit will probably not lose us any votes but explicitly permitting anyone to make copies of any book a friend lends him will lose us many."

"I think it's better to be clear on both counts, then. Any book that was in a wizard's possession before the convention began can unambiguously be copied and distributed and sold by that wizard, no matter who that wizard is and what the work is, as long as it hasn't been explicitly banned?"

"Yes, if they do the sales personally and don't pass them on."

"Good morning, Archdukes, Delegate Tallandria. Ah, I see there are edits..."

Somebody pulls Soler in before he's even gotten a chance to sit down. (He was running a little late this morning. If you tell a temple full of people to adopt children and then a bunch of them do it you're going to get a lot of questions for a few days. It's fine.)

"Sower! Thank you for coming. We're working on a censorship proposal to go first thing. Sofia, read it to him, will you?"

His comments, as the proposal is read to him, are: "How small an audience?" and "I saw somebody writing down my sermon, have I got to chase down people doing that lest I be a 'creator'?" and "it's traditional to modify Erastil's holy book with local fables wherever it's put about, so this bans it as it's meant to be done" and "clerics get Scrivener's Chant too, turns out, but not Arcane Mark".

Damn, Theopho's important enough they tracked him down during the break. ...or she just made herself impossible to find outside very concerted efforts, she did also do that.

"That was one of my people, Sower; Txell. But no, the one who makes the Mark is the one who counts. I'd love to ask Someone - Abadar? - to make Divine Mark, but unless They do I think we'll have to make do with wizards. I have absolutely no idea what to do that would allow the Parables of Erastil done traditionally and not make the floor vote it down."

"Hold a specific vote in the Committee on Good Churches to explicitly permit it."

There are a lot of wizards in Cheliax. It won't get everything. But it will get a lot of things, and the things it doesn't get won't be destroyed, just - in stasis, unable to be further saved, unless someone publishes them properly, in any of seven different countries, some of which probably allow books. That's... fine. It's not perfect but it's fine.

"I assume this doesn't mean to interfere with the workings of academy libraries, since those are literally run by the government, but are they currently covered? I'm assuming the librarians should go through the current collections and mark everything, at which point copies can be made, but only by the librarians? Do we want that?" She will look so dumb if Egorian was the only academy with a library, but the other schools were supposed to have more proper scholarship.