On the origin of the right to copy : charting the movement of copyright law in eighteenth-century Britain (1695-1775) / Ronan Deazley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Deazley, Ronan, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Copyright--Great Britain--History--18th century.

Copyright.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (290 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Oxford [U.K.] ; Portland, Ore. : Hart Publishing, 2004.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"Taking as its point of departure the lapse of the Licensing Act 1662 in 1695, this book examines the lead up to the passage of the Statute of Anne 1709 and charts the movement of copyright law throughout the eighteenth century, culminating in the House of Lords decision in Donaldson v Becket (1774). The established reading of copyright's development throughout this period, from the 1709 Act to the pronouncement in Donaldson, is that it was transformed from a publisher's right to an author's right; that is, legislation initially designed to regulate the marketplace of the bookseller and publisher evolved into an instrument that functioned to recognise the proprietary inevitability of an author's intellectual labours. The historical narrative which unfolds within this book presents a challenge to that accepted orthodoxy. The traditional analysis of the development of copyright in eighteenth-century Britain is revealed as exhibiting the character of long-standing myth, and the centrality of the modern proprietary author as the raison d'être of the copyright regime is displaced."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

Contents:

Introduction

1. Politics, propaganda and profanity; not property

2. The Statute of Anne; A miserable Havock

3. Scraps of proceedings

4. Be careful what you wish for

5. The first: copyright at common law? A "complicated" action. The second: the lawyers' tales

6. Property and the pamphleteers

7. Millar v Taylor; the temporary perpetual triumph

8. Donaldson v Becket; a game of numbers

9. An ending and a beginning

Conclusion

Postscript.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [239]-254) and index.

ISBN:

9786610814039

9781472563064

1472563069

9781280814037

1280814039

9781847310385

1847310389

OCLC:

476005312