describes a set of "property" rights—copyright, patents,
trademark, and trade-secret—but the nature of those rights is
very different.
+<indexterm><primary>Vaidhyanathan, Siva</primary></indexterm>
</para></footnote>
A large, diverse society cannot survive without property; a large,
diverse, and modern society cannot flourish without intellectual
I am grateful to Peter DiMauro for pointing me to this extraordinary
history. See also Siva Vaidhyanathan, Copyrights and Copywrongs, 87–93,
which details Edison's "adventures" with copyright and patent.
+<indexterm><primary>Vaidhyanathan, Siva</primary></indexterm>
</para></footnote>
Creators and directors migrated from the East Coast to California in
the early twentieth century in part to escape controls that patents
Jonson, John Milton, and John Dryden. See Keith Walker, "Jacob Tonson,
Bookseller," American Scholar 61:3 (1992): 424–31.
</para></footnote>
-Tonson was the
-
most prominent of a small group of publishers called the Conger<footnote><para>
+Tonson was the most prominent of a small group of publishers called
+the Conger<footnote><para>
<!-- f2 -->
-Lyman Ray Patterson, Copyright in Historical Perspective (Nashville:
- Vanderbilt
-University Press, 1968), 151–52.
-</para></footnote>
-who
-controlled bookselling in England during the eighteenth century. The
-Conger claimed a perpetual right to control the "copy" of books that
-they had acquired from authors. That perpetual right meant that no
+Lyman Ray Patterson, Copyright in Historical Perspective (Nashville:
+Vanderbilt University Press, 1968), 151–52.
+</para></footnote>
+who controlled bookselling in England during the eighteenth
+century. The Conger claimed a perpetual right to control the "copy" of
+books that they had acquired from authors. That perpetual right meant
+that no
<!-- PAGE BREAK 97 -->
one else could publish copies of a book to which they held the
- copyright.
-Prices of the classics were thus kept high; competition to
- produce
-better or cheaper editions was eliminated.
+copyright. Prices of the classics were thus kept high; competition to
+produce better or cheaper editions was eliminated.
</para>
<para>
Now, there's something puzzling about the year 1774 to anyone who
-knows a little about copyright law. The better-known year in the history
-of copyright is 1710, the year that the British Parliament adopted the
-first "copyright" act. Known as the Statute of Anne, the act stated that
-all published works would get a copyright term of fourteen years,
- renewable
-once if the author was alive, and that all works already
- published
-by 1710 would get a single term of twenty-one additional years.<footnote><para>
+knows a little about copyright law. The better-known year in the
+history of copyright is 1710, the year that the British Parliament
+adopted the first "copyright" act. Known as the Statute of Anne, the
+act stated that all published works would get a copyright term of
+fourteen years, renewable once if the author was alive, and that all
+works already published by 1710 would get a single term of twenty-one
+additional years.<footnote><para>
<!-- f3 -->
-As Siva Vaidhyanathan nicely argues, it is erroneous to call this a
- "copyright
-law." See Vaidhyanathan, Copyrights and Copywrongs, 40.
-</para></footnote>
-Under this law, Romeo and Juliet should have been free in 1731. So why
-was there any issue about it still being under Tonson's control in 1774?
+As Siva Vaidhyanathan nicely argues, it is erroneous to call this a
+"copyright law." See Vaidhyanathan, Copyrights and Copywrongs, 40.
+<indexterm><primary>Vaidhyanathan, Siva</primary></indexterm>
+</para></footnote> Under this law, Romeo and Juliet should have been
+free in 1731. So why was there any issue about it still being under
+Tonson's control in 1774?
</para>
<para>
-The reason is that the English hadn't yet agreed on what a
- "copyright"
+The reason is that the English hadn't yet agreed on what a "copyright"
was—indeed, no one had. At the time the English passed the
Statute of Anne, there was no other legislation governing copyrights.
-The last law regulating publishers, the Licensing Act of 1662, had
- expired
-in 1695. That law gave publishers a monopoly over publishing, as
-a way to make it easier for the Crown to control what was published.
-But after it expired, there was no positive law that said that the
- publishers,
-or "Stationers," had an exclusive right to print books.
+The last law regulating publishers, the Licensing Act of 1662, had
+expired in 1695. That law gave publishers a monopoly over publishing,
+as a way to make it easier for the Crown to control what was
+published. But after it expired, there was no positive law that said
+that the publishers, or "Stationers," had an exclusive right to print
+books.
</para>
<para>
There was no positive law, but that didn't mean that there was no
Lyman Ray Patterson, "Free Speech, Copyright, and Fair Use," Vanderbilt
Law Review 40 (1987): 28. For a wonderfully compelling account, see
Vaidhyanathan, 37–48.
+<indexterm><primary>Vaidhyanathan, Siva</primary></indexterm>
</para></footnote>
The bookseller didn't care squat for the rights of the author. His
concern was the monopoly profit that the author's work gave.
you were."<footnote><para>
<!-- f20 -->
Ibid. See also Vaidhyanathan, Copyrights and Copywrongs, 1–3.
+<indexterm><primary>Vaidhyanathan, Siva</primary></indexterm>
</para></footnote>
The Marx Brothers therefore owned the word brothers,
and if Warner Brothers insisted on trying to control Casablanca, then
Never in our history have fewer had a legal right to control more of
the development of our culture than now.
</para>
-<para> Not when copyrights were perpetual, for when copyrights were
+<para>
+Not when copyrights were perpetual, for when copyrights were
perpetual, they affected only that precise creative work. Not when
only publishers had the tools to publish, for the market then was much
more diverse. Not when there were only three television networks, for
<!-- f35 -->
Siva Vaidhyanathan captures a similar point in his "four surrenders" of
copyright law in the digital age. See Vaidhyanathan, 159–60.
+<indexterm><primary>Vaidhyanathan, Siva</primary></indexterm>
</para></footnote>
</para>
<para>
<para>
"If you can treat someone as a putative lawbreaker," von Lohmann
explains,
+<indexterm><primary>von Lohmann, Fred</primary></indexterm>
</para>
<blockquote>
<para>
have already learned, our presumptions about innocence disappear in
the middle of wars of prohibition. This war is no different.
Says von Lohmann,
+<indexterm><primary>von Lohmann, Fred</primary></indexterm>
</para>
<blockquote>
<para>
projects / text-free-culture-lessig.git / blobdiff