Prior to the invention of the printing press, the manual copying of books was so laborious, there was no need for protection. Of course, once this new technology existed, the need to protect the right to copy books also existed.
Officially beginning with the English Statue of Anne (1710), copyright law has since found a place in most countries, evolving through time with technological advances and trade agreements.
Sometime in the late 1300s, a group of English text writers, illuminators, bookbinders and booksellers decided to work in a common space, and in 1403, the Guild of Stationers was approved in London. This was a guild of practitioners in a fixed (not mobile) location under St Paul’s Cathedral – hence the origin of the term “stationery” as applied to office supplies.
By 1557, and well after the introduction of the Gutenberg Press, the Guild had effectively evolved into a printers’ Guild, with an agreement not to reprint each other’s print jobs. However, printers outside of the Guild were not bound by the agreement, and so unauthorised reprints rolled off the presses. The Stationers’ company petitioned the King for the right to be a monopoly. This was granted, and now, a member author would enter his book into the Stationers’ Company ledger, asserting ownership, which meant nobody else (read: “indie printers”) had the “right to copy” it: hence the term “Copyright.” Copyright was initially protection for the printers.
There was a catch to royal protection, however – in return for the protections afforded the Stationers, the Catholic Queen Mary and King Philip had the power to be the ultimate censor, and the Worshipful Company of Stationers were given the authority and responsibility to seize any offending books and take offending authors to the Bishop and Archbishop for trial. This meant the constriction and destruction of any literature that offered any view considered contrary to the Catholic Church.
It took a long time and several changes of sovereign and religion, but in 1710, the Statute of Anne, also known as the Copyright Act (1710) was passed, with protective rights now regulated by the government and the courts, rather than by private parties, and granted to authors the ability to choose their own publishers, protected for 14 years, and renewable at the end of that term, after which the work would fall into the public domain. For the first time, the interests of the public were provided for, and despite pushback (and a little period known as Battle of the Booksellers,) the Statute of Anne provided protection for authors, with consideration for the community, laying the foundation of current Copyright Law in most western nations.
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Written by Karen Workman, Kaiwhakahaere Whakapa | Creative Rights Educator