Three centuries of copyright law

Three hundred years ago, on 10 April 1710, the world’s first fully fledged copyright law entered into force — in Britain, of course. Its full title was “An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned”. But it is generally known simply as either the Copyright Act 1709, after the year in which it was enacted, or the Statute of Anne, after the Queen during whose reign it was enacted.

The Act replaced a monopoly that had been granted to the Stationers’ Company in 1557. Under this system, members of the company would buy manuscripts from authors and thereafter enjoy a perpetual monopoly on the printing of the work. Authors were not allowed to join the company themselves and therefore could not legally publish their own works. And there was no system for the payment of royalties to authors whose works sold well.

The preamble to the new Act made it clear why the legislation was deemed necessary: “Whereas Printers, Booksellers, and other Persons, have of late frequently taken the Liberty of Printing, Reprinting, and Publishing, or causing to be Printed, Reprinted, and Published, Books, and other Writings, without the Consent of the Authors or Proprietors of such Books and Writings, to their very great Detriment, and too often to the Ruin of them and their Families: For Preventing therefore such Practices for the future, and for the Encouragement of Learned Men to Compose and Write useful Books; . . .”

The new law gave the monopoly on reproduction of a work to its author rather than to its printer. It created a 21-year term for works already in print and a 14-year term for works published after its enactment. If the author was still alive after 14 years, then a further 14-year period would be granted.

The Act also included measures to prevent publishers and booksellers from overcharging for books. A panel of 12 senior clergymen, judges and academics was charged with considering complaints about unreasonable prices and was given the power to limit the price of any book.

A further provision of the Act was that printers had to provide nine copies of each publication for distribution to prestigious libraries across Britain.

Copyright legislation has come a long way in the past 300 years. The 1709 Act went through a number of amendments but endured until 1842, when it was repealed and replaced by a new Act. Then in 1886 a multinational “Conference of Powers” in Berne, Switzerland, adopted a convention that set out to harmonise the regulation of copyright on literary and artistic works at an international level. The convention has been revised many times and has now been adopted by most of the world’s nations.

The Berne Convention now states that literary works shall be protected for at least 50 years after the death of the author, but individual nations may extend that period if they so wish. In the UK, where copyright is now covered by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, protection continues until 70 years after the author’s death — a period that in April 1710 would no doubt have been beyond any author’s wildest dreams.