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Privilege and Property: Essays on the History of Copyright
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What can and can’t be copied is a matter of law, but also of aesthetics, culture, and economics. The act of copying, and the creation and transaction of rights relating to it, evokes fundamental notions of communication and censorship, of authorship and ownership – of privilege and property.
What can and can’t be copied is a matter of law, but also of aesthetics, culture, and economics. The act of copying, and the creation and transaction of rights relating to it, evokes fundamental notions of communication and censorship, of authorship and ownership – of privilege and property.
This volume conceives a new history of copyright law that has its
roots in a wide range of norms and practices. The essays reach back to
the very material world of craftsmanship and mechanical inventions of
Renaissance Italy where, in 1469, the German master printer Johannes of
Speyer obtained a five-year exclusive privilege to print in Venice and
its dominions. Along the intellectual journey that follows, we encounter
John Milton who, in 1644 accused the English parliament of having been
deceived by the ‘fraud of some old patentees and monopolizers in the
trade of bookselling’ (i.e. the London Stationers’ Company). Later
revisionary essays investigate the regulation of the printing press in
the North American colonies as a provincial and somewhat crude version
of European precedents, and how, in the revolutionary France of 1789,
the subtle balance that the royal decrees had established between the
interests of the author, the bookseller, and the public, was shattered
by the abolition of the privilege system.
Contributions also address the specific evolution of rights associated with the visual and performing arts.
The volume is a companion to the digital archive Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900), funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
Contributions also address the specific evolution of rights associated with the visual and performing arts.
The volume is a companion to the digital archive Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900), funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
Privilege and Property is recommended in the Times Higher Education Textbook Guide (November, 2010).
No. of pages: 438
No. of illustrations: 11
No. of pages: 438
No. of illustrations: 11
ISBN (13): 9781906924188
ISBN (10): 190692418X
Privilege and Property. Essays on the History of Copyright edited by Ronan Deazley, Martin Kretschmer and Lionel Bently is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.