Johns 2009

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)