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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. 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 his 1644 Areopagitica speech 'For the
Liberty of Unlicensed Printing', accuses 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. These essays provide essential reading for anybody
interested in copyright, intellectual history and current public
policy choices in intellectual property. The volume is a companion
to the digital archive Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900),
funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRe:
www.copyrighthistory.org.
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