Richard Bowker - Copyright - Its History and Its Law

Florence

Florence was second only to Venice in the production of books and the protection of authors, and the records of Florentine printing show that in the sixteenth century international privileges were sought and obtained. Thus the printer of a Florentine edition of the Pandects, in 1553, obtained privileges also in Spain, France and the two Sicilies, possibly through a Papal grant.

Control by the Church

By 1515, under Leo X, patron of art and letters, the Holy See had asserted its jurisdiction over copyrights and privileges, not only in its own territory, but throughout Italy and Germany, and elsewhere, under pain of spiritual punishments. Fra Felice of Prato, a converted Jew, had obtained from the Pope a privilege for certain Hebrew works valid throughout all Europe, the denial or infringement of which was punishable by excommunication; but he took the precaution to obtain a privilege also from the Venetian authorities. There is other evidence of a compromise policy involving approval from the Church before a secular privilege was granted, especially of theological works. Throughout Catholic countries the index expurgatorius banned for the most part the printing of forbidden books; and this made Holland later the chief centre of printing, since the placing of a work in the index invited prompt reprint by Dutch publishers. It was perhaps a survival of a requirement for deposit of such books that Holland so long remained the only nation in Europe conditioning copyright on deposit of a copy printed within the country.

In France

In France, after the invention of printing, the functions of the libraires jurés , under the authority given by the King through the University of Paris, naturally came to include books, and this relation was continued until the Revolution of 1789. Copyrights throughout this period seem to have been in perpetuity. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, in the times of Louis XII, "letters of the King" forbade booksellers, printers and other persons to "introduce foreign impressions" of the books to which such letters were appended. They were usually issued to printers. In 1537, under Francis I, a work had first to secure "the King's approval given through the royal librarian," a copy must be deposited in the library of the royal château of Blois, and the selling of foreign works was permitted only after approval as worthy of a place in the royal library, – but for these last the library was to pay the usual price. In 1556 a general ordinance of Henry II defined literary property, and publication of condemned books was declared treason. In 1566 the "Ordinance de Moulins" of Charles IX made further definition; and letters patent of Henry III, in 1576, referred back to these earlier ordinances. Infringement of such privileges was punished with especial severity in France, for, as quoted by Lowndes, such conduct was thought "worse than to enter a neighbor's house and steal his goods: for negligence might be imputed to him for permitting the thief to enter: but in the case of piracy of copyright, it was stealing a thing confided to the public honor." Louis XIV in 1682 visited it with corporal punishment, and for a second offence decreed in 1686 also that the offender should be forever disabled from exercising his trade of bookseller or printer.

Copyrights continued in perpetuity until all royal privileges were abolished in 1789 by the National Assembly, after which in July, 1793, a general copyright law was passed, granting copyright to an author for his life and to his heirs for ten years thereafter.

In England

In England, a Royal Printer was appointed in 1504, and to his successor, Richard Pynson, in 1518, the first printing "privilege" was issued, in the form of a prohibition for two years of the printing by any other person of a certain speech to which this first English copyright notice was appended. Bishop Fell, in his memoirs on the state of printing in the University of Oxford, states that this University had been granted certain exclusive privileges of transcribing and multiplying books by means of writing; and Lowndes in his early "Historical sketch of the law of copyright," published in 1840 and 1842, cites many early privileges, most commonly for seven years, granted after the invention of printing.

An early enactment of Richard III, in 1483, had encouraged the circulation of books by exempting from certain restraints on aliens "any artificer, or merchant stranger, of what nation or country he be, for bringing into this realm, or selling by retail or otherwise, any books written or printed, or for inhabiting within this said realm for the same intent, or any scrivener, alluminor, reader, or printer of such books." But fifty years later, under Henry VIII, this exemption was repealed by an act, "for printers and binders of books," which provided that no persons "resident or inhabitant within this realm shall buy to sell again, any printed books brought from any parts out of the King's obeysance, ready bound in boards, leather, or parchment," or buy "of any stranger born out of the King's obedience, other than of denizens, any manner of printed books brought from any parties beyond the sea, except only by engross, and not by retail" – the buyer to be punished by a fine, of which a moiety was to go to the informer. The act also contained provisions to "reform and redress," through the Chancery judges with "twelve honest and discreet persons," "too high and unreasonable prices."

Book restriction

The quaint preamble of this act of 1533 sets forth as its "whereas," in reference to the act of Richard III, that "there hath come to this realm sithen the making of the same, a marvelous number of printed books, and daily doth; and the cause of the making of the same provision seemeth to be, for that there were but few books, and few printers within this realm at that time, which could well exercise and occupy the said science and craft of printing; nevertheless, sithen the making of the said provision, many of this realm, being the King's natural subjects, have given them so diligently to learn and exercise the said craft of printing, that at this day there be within this realm a great number cunning and expert in the said science or craft of printing, as able to exercise the said craft in all points, as any stranger in any other realm or country; and furthermore, where there be a great number of the King's subjects within this realm, which live by the craft and mystery of binding of books, and that there be a great multitude well expert in the same, yet all this notwithstanding, there are divers persons that bring from beyond the sea great plenty of printed books, not only in the Latin tongue, but also in our maternal English tongue, some bound in boards, some in leather, and some in parchment, and them sell by retail, whereby many of the King's subjects, being binders of books, and having no other faculty wherewith to get their living, be destitute of work and like to be undone, except some reformation herein be had." This is interesting in connection with the American manufacturing clause.

Early English protection

Henry VIII granted many printing privileges, and in 1530 the first English copyright to an author was issued to John Palsgrave, who, having prepared a French grammar at his own expense, received a privilege for seven years. In 1533 appeared the first complaint of piracy, that of Wynken de Worde, who obtained the King's privilege for his second edition of Witinton's Grammar, because Peter Trevers had reprinted it from the edition of 1523. Up to the middle of the sixteenth century copyrights were in form printers' licenses, and even in the case cited Palsgrave seems to have been recognized rather because he published his own book than because he wrote it.

The Stationers' Company

The Stationers' Company, created by Henry VIII and chartered under Queen Mary in 1556, though the development of an earlier guild dating from 1403, was in part a device to prevent seditious printing, by prohibiting any printing in England except by those registered in its membership. In 1558, under a second charter, its by-laws provided that every one who printed a book should register it and pay a fee, and those who failed to do this, or who printed another member's book, were to be fined. In 1562 licenses were declared void "if any other has a right," and in 1573 sales of "copy" are entered. The practice had grown up of granting patents or monopolies to persons for a whole class of books; the Stationers' Company itself held that for almanacs up to a very late period, and the Crown has retained that on the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer to the present day. These monopolies were defied, and the Star Chamber decree of 1566, disabling offending printers from exercising their trade and prescribing imprisonment, did not avail. In 1640 the Star Chamber and all the regulations of the press were abolished by the Long Parliament, but the abuse of unlicensed printing led to a new licensing act in 1643, which prohibited printing or importing without consent of the owner , on pain of forfeiture of copies to the owner, and which renewed the order that all books should be entered in the register of the Stationers' Company. The early registers still exist in Stationers' Hall, near Paternoster Row, London, in quaint and almost undecipherable chirography, and some of them have been reissued in facsimile . It was against the licensing act of this date that Milton, in 1644, printed his "Areopagitica," but he particularly excepts from his criticism of the act the part providing for "the just retaining of each man his several copy, which God forbid should be gainsaid."