CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY THE history of copyright has been exhaustively dealt with by Mr. Copinger, Mr. Scrutton, and Mr. Drone in their respective treatises on copyright law. I feel that I can add nothing useful to this branch of the subject, and as a detailed account of the evolution of the law of literary and artistic property is of little value to the practitioner except as academic knowledge, I propose merely to pass briefly in review the various epochs through which the author and his publisher have passed in their struggle to obtain from the public what they consider to be the just and adequate remuneration for their labours. For a complete historical introduction to the law of copyright I cannot do better than refer to Mr. Birrell's delightful lectures.1 Preroga The first record which we have of any monopoly in the The Royal reproduction of literary work is in the exercise of the alleged tive. prerogative of the Crown to control the printing-press. No book whatsoever was allowed to be printed without a licence or grant of monopoly from the Crown. One of the principal objects in the exercise of this prerogative was the prevention of the dissemination of religious doctrines contrary to the accepted faith. pany of Henry VIII. created the Company of Stationers to supervise The Comand control the publication of books. This company made Stationers. various rules and regulations as to the printing of books, and from them licences could be obtained by an author to print his copy. The Stationers' Company was first incorporated in the reign of Philip and Mary in 1556. The Crown enforced its 1 "The Law and History of Copyright in Books," by Augustine Birrell, 1899. 3 The Star Chamber. The germ of Copyright. Licences. The Long Licensing 8 Anne, C. 19. ning of Statutory prerogative and the rules of the Stationers' Company by means of the Court of Star Chamber, which from time to time passed various decrees, and punished offenders by fine and imprisonment. By this means the Crown until 1640 exercised an unlimited jurisdiction over the press. In this there was no recognition of a right of property in the author of a work, but merely an enforcement of the royal prerogative to control the press. Incidentally, however, a kind of property sprang up, since the Stationers' Company in granting licences recognised the right of the author or his assignee to his copy. Licences were granted to those who showed that they had a right in the manuscript, and all others were prohibited from infringing the monopoly. An entry in the records of the Stationers' Company in 1562, for instance, enacts "That if it be found any other has a right to any of the copies, then the licence touching such of the copies so belonging to another shall be void." When the Star Chamber was abolished in 1640 the two Houses made an ordinance prohibiting printing unless the book was first licensed and entered in the register of the Stationers' Company, and further prohibiting printing without the consent of the owner. At the Restoration a licensing statute1 was passed similarly prohibiting printing without licence and without the consent of the owner. The statute finally expired in 1694. On the expiry of the licensing statute, authors and publishers thought that all protection for literary work was gone, and made strenuous efforts for new legislation. Bills were brought into Parliament in 1703 and 1706, and finally in 1709 the copyright statute of Anne became law. The Act of Anne created for the first time a statutory proThe begin- perty in books. The author of any book and his assignee or assigns were given the sole liberty of printing and reprinting Copyright. such book for the term of fourteen years from publication "and no longer," and if at the end of that period the author was still living, then such right returned to the author for 1 13 and 14 Car. 2, c. 33. |