With analog forms of information, copying is only possible to a limited degree of accuracy, which depends on the quality of the equipment used and the skill of the operator.
In visual art, copying the works of the masters is a standard way that students learn to paint and sculpt.
[1] Often, artists will use the term after to credit the original artist in the title of the copy (regardless of how similar the two works appear) such as in Vincent van Gogh's "First Steps (after Millet)" and Pablo Picasso's "Luncheon on the Grass, after Manet" (based on Manet's well-known work).
[2][3] In sculpture, copies have often been made using devices such as the pointing machine, the pantograph or, more recently, computer guided router systems that scan[4] a model and can produce it in a variety of materials and in any desired size.
Letter copying presses were used by the early 1780s by people like Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson.
In 1785, Jefferson was using both stationary and portable presses made by James Watt & Co. During the 19th century, a host of competing technologies were introduced to meet office copying needs.
[6] The technologies that were most commonly used in 1895 are identified in an 1895 description of the New York Business College's course program: "All important letters or documents are copied in a letter-book or carbon copies [are] made, and instruction is also given in the use of the mimeograph and other labor-saving office devices.