to be published without licence from the chancellor and the chiefs of the three courts, and this form of licence remained in use after the act had expired. University and college copyrights were made perpetual by an act of George III., but only on condition of the books being printed at their printing presses and for their own benefit.
3. The first definite statute, or Copyright Act, in England was passed in 1709. The preamble states that printers, booksellers and other persons were frequently in the habit of printing, reprinting, and publishing “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, it is enacted that the author of any book or books already printed, who hath not transferred to any other the copy or copies of such book or books in order to print or reprint the same, shall have the sole right and liberty of printing such book or books for the term of one-and-twenty years, and that the author of any book or books already composed, and not printed and published, or that shall hereafter be composed, and his assignee, or assignees, shall have the sole liberty of printing and reprinting such book or books for the term of fourteen years, to commence from the day of first publishing the same, and no longer.” The penalty for offences against the act was declared to be the forfeiture of the illicit copies to the true proprietor, and the fine of one penny per sheet, half to the crown, and half to any person suing for the same. “After the expiration of the said term of fourteen years the sole right of printing or disposing of copies shall return to the authors thereof, if they are then living, or their representatives, for another term of fourteen years.” To secure the benefit of the act registration at Stationers’ Hall was necessary. In section 4 was contained the provision that if any person thought the price of a book “too high and unreasonable,” he might complain to the archbishop of Canterbury, the lord chancellor, the bishop of London, the chiefs of the three courts at Westminster, and the vice-chancellors of the two universities in England, and to the lord president, lord justice general, lord chief baron of the exchequer, and the rector of the college of Edinburgh in Scotland, who might fix a reasonable price. Nine copies of each book were to be provided for the royal library, the libraries of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the four Scottish universities, Sion College, and the faculty of advocates at Edinburgh.
It was believed for a long time that this statute had not interfered with the rights of authors at common law. Ownership of literary property at common law appears indeed to have been recognized in some earlier statutes. The Licensing Act 1662 prohibited the printing of any work without the consent of the owner on pain of forfeiture, &c. This act expired in 1679, and attempts to renew it were unsuccessful. The records of the Stationers’ Company show that the purchase and sale of copyrights had become an established usage, and the loss of the protection, incidentally afforded by the Licensing Act, was felt as a serious grievance, which ultimately led to the statute of 1709. That statute, as the judges in Millar v. Taylor (1769, 4 Burr. 2303) pointed out, speaks of the ownership of literary property as a known thing. Many cases are recorded in which the courts protected copyrights not falling within the periods laid down by the act. Thus in 1735 the master of the rolls restrained the printing of an edition of the Whole Duty of Man, published in 1657. In 1739 an injunction was granted by Lord Hardwicke against the publication of Paradise Lost, at the instance of persons claiming under an assignment from Milton in 1667. In the case of Millar v. Taylor the plaintiff, who had purchased the copyright of Thomson’s Seasons in 1729, claimed damages for an unlicensed publication thereof by the defendant in 1763. The jury found that before the statute it was usual to purchase from authors the perpetual copyright of their works. Three judges, among whom was Lord Mansfield, decided in favour of the common law right; one was of the contrary opinion. The majority thought that the act of 1709 was not intended to destroy copyright at common law, but merely to protect it more efficiently during the limited periods. Millar v. Taylor, however, was speedily overruled by the case of Donaldson v. Beckett in the House of Lords in 1774. The judges were called upon to state their opinions. A majority (seven to four) were of opinion that the author and his assigns had at common law the sole right of publication in perpetuity. A majority (six to five) were of opinion that this right had been taken away by the statute of 1709, and a term of years substituted for the perpetuity. The decision appears to have taken the trade by surprise. Many booksellers had purchased copyrights not protected by the statute, and they now petitioned parliament to be relieved from the consequences of the decision in Donaldson v. Beckett. A bill for this purpose actually passed the House of Commons, but Lord Camden’s influence succeeded in defeating it in the House of Lords. The result is that from that time on ordinary copyright has been recognized except in so far as it is sanctioned by statute. The university copyrights were, however, protected in perpetuity by an act passed in 1775.
By an act of 1801 the penalty for infringement of copyright was increased to threepence per sheet, in addition to the forfeiture of the book. The proprietor was to have an action on the case against any person in the United Kingdom, or British dominions in Europe, who should print, reprint, or import without the consent of the proprietor, first had in writing, signed in the presence of two or more credible witnesses, any book or books, or who knowing them to be printed, &c., without the proprietor’s consent should sell, publish, or expose them for sale; the proprietor to have his damages as assessed by the jury, and double costs of suit. A second period of fourteen years was confirmed to the author, should he still be alive at the end of the first. Further, it was forbidden to import into the United Kingdom for sale books first composed, written, or printed and published within the United Kingdom, and reprinted elsewhere. Another change was made by the act of 1814, which in substitution for the two periods of fourteen years gave to the author and his assignees copyright for the full term of twenty-eight years from the date of the first publication, “and also, if the author be living at the end of that period, for the residue of his natural life.”
4. The Copyright Act of 1842 repealed the previous acts on the
same subject, and is the basis of the existing law. Its preamble
stated its object to be to encourage the production of
“literary matter of lasting benefit to the world.” The
Act of
1842.
principal clause is the following (§ 3): “That the copyright
in every book which shall after the passing of this act be
published in the lifetime of its author shall endure for the natural
life of such author, and for the further term of seven years,
commencing at the time of his death, and shall be the property of
such author and his assignees; provided always that if the said
term of seven years shall expire before the end of forty-two years
from the first publication of such book the copyright shall in that
case endure for such period of forty-two years; and that the
copyright of every book which shall be published after the death
of its author shall endure for the term of forty-two years from the
first publication thereof, and shall be the property of the proprietor
of the author’s manuscript from which such book shall be
first published and his assigns.” The benefit of the enlarged period
was extended to subsisting copyrights, unless they were the
property of an assignee who had acquired them by purchase, in
which case the period of copyright would be extended only if the
author or his personal representative agreed with the proprietor
to accept the benefit of the act. By section 5 the judicial
committee of the privy council may license the republication of
books which the proprietor of the copyright thereof refuses to
publish after the death of the author. The sixth section provides
for the delivery within certain times of copies of all books
published after the passing of the act, and of all subsequent
editions thereof, at the British Museum. And a copy of every
book and its subsequent editions must be sent on demand to the
following libraries: the Bodleian at Oxford, the public library at
Cambridge, the library of the faculty of advocates in Edinburgh,
and that of Trinity College, Dublin. Other libraries (the libraries
