Editing Statute of Anne (section)

==Aftermath==

===Impact===
The statute was initially welcomed, ushering in "stability to an insecure book trade" while providing for a "pragmatic bargain" between the rights of the author, publisher and public intended to boost public learning and the availability of knowledge.{{sfn|Deazley|2006|p=14}} The clause requiring book deposits, however, was not seen as a success. If the books were not deposited, the penalties would be severe, with a fine of £5. The number of deposits required, however, meant that it was a substantial burden; a print run might only be of 250 copies, and if they were particularly expensive to print, it could be cheaper to ignore the law. Some booksellers argued that the deposit provision only applied to registered books, and so deliberately avoided registration just to be able to minimise their liability.{{sfn|Seville|2010|p=828}} This was further undermined by the ruling in ''[[Beckford v Hood]]'',<ref>(1798) 7 D&E 620</ref> where the [[Court of King's Bench (England)|Court of King's Bench]] confirmed that, even without registration, copyright could be enforced against infringers.{{sfn|Seville|2010|p=829}}

Another failure, identified by Bracha, is not found in what the statute covered, but in what it did not. The statute did not provide any means for identifying authors, did not identify what constituted authored works, and covered only "books", even while discussing "property" as a whole. Moreover, the right provided was merely that of "making and selling&nbsp;... exact reprints. To a large extent, the new regime was the old stationer's privilege, except it was universalised, capped in time, and formally conferred upon authors rather than publishers".{{sfn|Bracha|2010|p=1439}} The effect of the statute on authors was also minimal. Previously, publishers would have bought the original manuscript from writers for a lump sum; with the passage of the statute, they simply did the same thing, but with the manuscript's copyright as well. The remaining economic power of the company also allowed them to pressure booksellers and distributors into continuing their past arrangements, meaning that even theoretically "public domain" works were, in practise, still treated as copyrighted.{{sfn|Bracha|2010|p=1439}}

===Battle of the Booksellers===
[[File:James Thomson (Scottish poet).jpg|thumb|left|[[James Thomson (poet, born 1700)|James Thomson]], whose work ''[[The Seasons (Thomson poem)|The Seasons]]'' was the subject of ''[[Millar v Taylor]]'']]
When the copyrights granted to works published before the statute began to expire in 1731, the Stationers' Company and their publishers again began to fight to preserve the status quo. Their first port of call was Parliament, where they lobbied for new legislation to extend the length of copyright, and when this failed, they turned to the courts. Their principal argument was that copyright had not been created by the Statute of Anne; it existed beforehand, in the common law, and was perpetual. As such, even though the statute provided for a limited term, all works remained in copyright under the common law regardless of when statutory copyright expired.{{sfn|Patterson|1965|p=245}} Starting in 1743, this began a thirty-year campaign known as the "Battle of the Booksellers".{{sfn|Deazley|2006|p=14}} They first tried going to the [[Court of Chancery]] and applying for injunctions prohibiting other publishers from printing their works, and this was initially successful. A series of legal setbacks over the next few years, however, left the law ambiguous.{{sfn|Robinson|1991|p=71}}

The first major action taken to clarify the situation was ''[[Millar v Taylor]]''.<ref>(1768) 4 Burr 2303</ref> [[Andrew Millar]], a British publisher, purchased the rights to [[James Thomson (poet, born 1700)|James Thomson]]'s ''[[The Seasons (Thomson poem)|The Seasons]]'' in 1729, and when the copyright term expired, a competing publisher named Robert Taylor began issuing his own reprints of the work. Millar sued, and went to the Court of King's Bench to obtain an injunction and advocate perpetual copyright at common law.{{sfn|Seville|2010|p=822}} The jury found that the facts submitted by Millar were accurate, and asked the judges to clarify whether [[common law copyright]] existed. The first arguments were delivered on 30 June 1767, with John Dunning representing Millar and Edward Thurlow representing Taylor. A second set of arguments were submitted for Millar by [[William Blackstone]] on 7 June, and judgment was given on 20 April 1769. The final decision, written by [[William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield|Lord Mansfield]] and endorsed by [[Richard Aston|Aston]] and Willes JJ, confirmed that there existed copyright at common law that turned "upon Principles before and independent" of the Statute of Anne, something justified because it was right "that an Author should reap the pecuniary Profits of his own Ingenuity and Labour". In other words, regardless of the statute, there existed a perpetual copyright under the common law.{{sfn|Deazley|2006|p=15}} [[Joseph Yates (judge)|Yates]] J dissented, on the grounds that the focus on the author obscured the effect this decision would have on "the rest of mankind", which he felt would be to create a virtual monopoly, something that would harm the public and should certainly not be considered "an encouragement of the propagation of learning".{{sfn|Deazley|2004|p=178}}

Although this decision was a boon to the Stationers, it was short-lived. Following ''Millar'', the right to print ''The Seasons'' was sold to a coalition of publishers including Thomas Becket. Two Scottish printers, [[Alexander Donaldson (bookseller)|Alexander]] and John Donaldson, began publishing an unlicensed edition, and Becket successfully obtained an injunction to stop them. This decision was appealed in ''[[Donaldson v Beckett]]'',<ref>1 Eng. Rep. 837</ref> and eventually went to the [[Judicial Committee of the House of Lords|House of Lords]].{{sfn|Abrams|1985|p=1156}} After consulting with the judges of the [[Court of King's Bench (England)|King's Bench]], [[Court of Common Pleas (England)|Common Pleas]] and [[Exchequer of Pleas]], the Lords concluded that copyright was not perpetual, and that the term permitted by the Statute of Anne was the maximum length of legal protection for publishers and authors alike.{{sfn|Abrams|1985|p=1157}}

===Expansion and repeal===
{{Infobox UK legislation
| short_title           = Copyright Act 1814
| type                  = Act
| parliament            = Parliament of the United Kingdom
| long_title            = An Act to amend the several Acts for the Encouragement of Learning, by securing the Copies and Copyright of Printed Books, to the Authors of such Books or their Assigns.
| year                  = 1814
| citation              = [[54 Geo. 3]]. c. 156
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| territorial_extent    = 
| royal_assent          = 
| commencement          =
| expiry_date           =
| repeal_date           = 
| amends                = 
| replaces              = 
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| status                = 
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| theyworkforyou        = 
| millbankhansard       = 
| original_text         = 
| revised_text          = 
| collapsed             = yes
}}
[[File:Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford by Nathaniel Dance, (later Sir Nathaniel Dance-Holland, Bt).jpg|thumb|[[Frederick North, Lord North|Lord North]], who expanded the provisions of the Statute of Anne in 1775]]
Until its repeal, most extensions to copyright law were based around provisions found in the Statute of Anne. The one successful bill from the lobbying in the 1730s, which came into force on 29 September 1739, extended the provision prohibiting the import of foreign books to also prohibit the import of books that, while originally published in Britain, were being reprinted in foreign nations and then shipped to England and Wales. This was intended to stop the influx of cheap books from Ireland, and also repealed the price restrictions in the Statute of Anne.{{sfn|Robinson|1991|p=69}} Another alteration was over the legal deposit provisions of the statute, which many booksellers found unfair. Despite an initial period of compliance, the principle of donating copies of books to certain libraries lapsed, partly due to the unwieldiness of the statute's provisions and partly because of a lack of cooperation by the publishers. In 1775 [[Frederick North, Lord North|Lord North]], who was [[List of Chancellors of the University of Oxford|Chancellor of the University of Oxford]], succeeded in passing a bill that reiterated the legal deposit provisions and granted the universities perpetual copyright on their works.{{sfn|Alexander|2010|pp=48–49}}

Another range of extensions came in relation to what could be copyrighted. The statute only referred to books, and being an Act of Parliament, it was necessary to pass further legislation to include various other types of intellectual property. The [[Engraving Copyright Act 1734]] extended copyright to cover engravings, statutes in 1789 and 1792 involved cloth, sculptures were copyrighted in 1814 and the performance of plays and music were covered by copyright in 1833 and 1842 respectively.{{sfn|Cornish|2010|p=22}} The length of copyright was also altered; the '''Copyright Act 1814''' set a copyright term of either 28 years, or the natural life of the author if this was longer.{{sfn|Seville|2011|p=4}} Despite these expansions, some still felt copyright was not a strong enough regime. In 1837, [[Thomas Noon Talfourd]] introduced a bill into Parliament to expand the scope of copyright. A friend of many men of letters, Talfourd aimed to provide adequate rewards for authors and artists. He campaigned for copyright to exist for the life of the author, with an additional 60 years after that. He also proposed that existing statutes be codified under the bill, so that the case law that had arisen around the Statute of Anne was clarified.{{sfn|Alexander|2010|p=92}}

Talfourd's proposals led to opposition, and he reintroduced modified versions of them year on year. Printers, publishers and booksellers were concerned about the cost implications for original works, and for reprinting works that had fallen out of copyright.{{sfn|Alexander|2010|pp=94–95}} Many within Parliament argued that the bill failed to take into account the public interest, including Lord Macaulay, who succeeded in defeating one of Talfourd's bills in 1841.{{sfn|Alexander|2010|p=96}} The [[Copyright Act 1842]] passed, but "fell far short of Talfourd's dream of a uniform, consistent, codified law of copyright".{{sfn|Alexander|2010|p=100}} It extended copyright to life plus seven years, and, as part of the codification clauses, repealed the Statute of Anne.{{sfn|Alexander|2010|p=92}}

===Significance===
The Statute of Anne is traditionally seen as "a historic moment in the development of copyright", and the first statute in the world to provide for copyright.{{sfn|Deazley|2006|p=13}} Craig Joyce and [[Lyman Ray Patterson]], writing in the ''Emory Law Journal'', call this a "too simple understanding [that] ignores the statute's source", arguing that it is at best a derivative of the Licensing Act. Even considering this, however, the Statute of Anne was "the watershed event in Anglo-American copyright history&nbsp;... transforming what had been the publishers' private law copyright into a public law grant".{{sfn|Patterson & Joyce|2003|p=916}} Patterson, writing separately, does note the differences between the Licensing Act and the Statute of Anne; the question of censorship was, by 1710, out of the question, and in that regard the statute is distinct, not providing for censorship.{{sfn|Patterson|1965|p=236}}

It also marked the first time that copyright had been vested primarily in the author, rather than the publisher, and also the first time that the injurious treatment of authors by publishers was recognised; regardless of what authors signed away, the second 14-year term of copyright would automatically return to them.{{sfn|Bracha|2010|p=1438}} Even in the 21st century, the Statute of Anne is "frequently invoked by modern judges and academics as embodying the utilitarian underpinnings of copyright law".{{sfn|Alexander|2010|p=17}} In ''[[IceTV v Nine Network]]'',<ref>[2009] HCA 14</ref> for example, the [[High Court of Australia]] noted that the title of the statute "echoed explicitly the emphasis on the practical or utilitarian importance that certain seventeenth-century philosophers attached to knowledge and its encouragement in the scheme of human progress".{{sfn|Alexander|2010|p=17}} Despite "widely recognised flaws", the Act became a model copyright statute, both within the United Kingdom and internationally.{{sfn|Bently|2010|p=11}} [[Christophe Geiger]] notes that it is "a difficult, almost impossible task" to analyse the relationship between the Statute of Anne and early French copyright law, both because it is difficult to make a direct connection, and because the ongoing debate over both has led to radically different interpretations of each nation's law.{{sfn|Geiger|2010|pp=122–123}}

Similarly, Belgium took no direct influence from the statute or English copyright theory, but Joris Deene of the [[University of Ghent]] identifies an indirect influence "at two levels"; the criteria for what constitutes copyrightable material, which comes from the work of English theorists such as Locke and [[Edward Young]],{{sfn|Deene|2010|p=141}} and the underlying justification of copyright law. In Belgium, this justification is both that copyright serves the public interest, and that copyright is a "private right" that serves the interests of individual authors. Both theories were taken into account in ''Donaldson v Beckett'', as well as in the drafting of the Statute of Anne, and Deene infers that they subsequently affected the Belgian debates over their first copyright statute.{{sfn|Deene|2010|pp=142–143}} In the United States, the [[Copyright Clause]] of the [[United States Constitution]] and the first Federal copyright statute, the [[Copyright Act of 1790]], both draw on the Statute of Anne. The 1790 Act contains provisions for a 14-year term of copyright and sections that provide for authors who published their works before 1790, both of which mirror the protection offered by the statute 80 years previously.{{sfn|Patterson & Joyce|2003|p=939}}