Johns 2009: Difference between revisions

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* 1624: Monopolies Act by Parliament; Crown could only issue patents for activities under its authority (like gunpowder) or where no trade already existed in the realm
* 1624: Monopolies Act by Parliament; Crown could only issue patents for activities under its authority (like gunpowder) or where no trade already existed in the realm
* thought to mark the origin of Anglo-American intellectual property; but "in context, its real target was this proliferation of Crown intervention in the realm's everyday commercial conduct" (28)
* thought to mark the origin of Anglo-American intellectual property; but "in context, its real target was this proliferation of Crown intervention in the realm's everyday commercial conduct" (28)
Richard Atkyns, came forward in Restoration to claim he was heir to lucrative privilege printing all common law books, originally granted by Elizabeth I; SC challenged his bid, since some law books were already on the register
* Atkyns was not a printer; in fact claimed register system had brought about civil war
* claimed patent system guaranteed "gentleman" were in charge of the trade (32)


'''English Civil War'''
'''English Civil War'''

Revision as of 01:54, 3 December 2010

The Invention of Piracy

"Precisely when authorship took on a mantle of public authority, through the crafts of the printed book, its violation came to be seen as paramount transgression -- as an offense against the common good akin to the crime of the brigand, bandit, or pirate." (19)

medieval distinction between liberal and mechanical arts

  • Renaissance broke down these barriers; craft guilds with intellectual pursuits

pirate: use arose in English Revolution; previously, Donne had referred to antiquarian plagiarists as "wit-pyrats" (1611) (23), but

Stationers' Company:

  • SC could come look around printing houses for quality control
  • printing literally done in house by regulation -- domestic moral authority; pirated printing was done outside the house, in "holes" or "corners"
  • author and reader had no role (27)

Stationers' Register vs. Crown (privileges and patents)

  • 1624: Monopolies Act by Parliament; Crown could only issue patents for activities under its authority (like gunpowder) or where no trade already existed in the realm
  • thought to mark the origin of Anglo-American intellectual property; but "in context, its real target was this proliferation of Crown intervention in the realm's everyday commercial conduct" (28)

Richard Atkyns, came forward in Restoration to claim he was heir to lucrative privilege printing all common law books, originally granted by Elizabeth I; SC challenged his bid, since some law books were already on the register

  • Atkyns was not a printer; in fact claimed register system had brought about civil war
  • claimed patent system guaranteed "gentleman" were in charge of the trade (32)

English Civil War

  • regulation out the window
  • Milton's Areopagitica, Gerrard Winstanley's pamphlets

restored Charles II "therefore viewed popular print with a queasy mixture of respect, unease, and fear" (30); "how to accommodate and exploit what was becoming a perpetual sphere of printed argument, in which the rules of knowledge were no longer those of university, court or palace" (30)