[Upd-discuss] Christian Engstrom on Copyright Law and Online Freedom

[Richard Stallman]

    I find it difficult to understand how you could be fooled quite so
    thoroughly by people rewriting history, whether it is from 1700's,
    or from modern times.

You suggested that I look this up, and I did so in Copyright in
Historical Perspective, by Lyman Patterson.  It more or less confirms
what I said, though with a twist I did not know about.

Basically, the Stationers' Guild first set up its own copyright system
("stationers' copyright" in that book) which was later reinforced by
the crown, but that law expired in 1694.  The Statute of Anne
established copyright for authors, but it also renewed the existing
stationers' copyrights for the subsequent 21 years (till 1730).

Some quotes from the book:

P13: At the time the Statute of Anne was enacted, there was only one
concept of copyright known to legislators--the stationers'
copyright...

The mechanics for obtaining the statutory copyright were
substantially the same as for obtaining the stationers' copyright.
There were ony two major differences between the two copyrights, and
both differences struck directly at teh book-sellers' monopoly: the
statutory copyright was limited to a term of fourteen years, with a
similar renewal term available only to the author; and statutory
copyright was available to anyone, not to stationers only...

Finally it should be remembered that the Statute of Anne continued the
existing copyrights, the stationers' copyrights, for a period of 21
years...


P15: After the expiration of the 21 year period of grace provided by
the Statute of Anne, the booksellers sought to perpetuate their
monopoly.  First, they lobbied for new legislation from Parliament,
and failing in this, they resorted to litigation...  In spite of the
transparency of their strategy, the booksellers almost succeeded.


P27: On May 4, 1557, Philip and Mary granted a charter to the
Stationers' Company.  The partnership between the the company and the
government, one interested in protecting property, the other in
controlling the press, was to last for over a hundred years.

(Before that, the Stationers' Company had no charter, so its internal
copyright system had no legal force over everyone else.  There was
censorship, but it didn't work through the Stationers' Company.)