There are some benefits to society of limiting copyright. One is to expand readership of newspapers and books to a wider section of the public. Newspapers were once relatively expensive, but copies were freely available in coffee houses throughout Europe. The invention of public libraries had the same effect for books. Many great people in the 18th and 19th century came from poor backgrounds. Such people as Michael Faraday (the son of a blacksmith) and Alfred Russel Wallace had no university education, but used libraries to get their knowledge up-to-date. The aim of copyright law is to have a balance between these two sides: the needs of authors and publishers, and the broader needs of society.