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  • 4 - Copyright, authors and censorship

  • from PART II - ECONOMIC, LEGAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS
  • Edited by Michael F. Suarez, SJ, University of Virginia, Michael L. Turner, Bodleian Library, Oxford
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain
    Published online:
    28 September 2010
    Print publication:
    29 October 2009, pp 118-131

  • Summary

    The period from 1695 to 1830, from the lapse of the Licensing Act to the eve of the Reform Bill, thus saw major transformations in the legal culture within which the book trade operated. When the guild system was supplanted by the Statute of Anne, however, the great booksellers managed to maintain control of their valuable old copyrights for the better part of a century until in 1774 the House of Lords declared copyright to be limited in term. Instead of basing the term of copyright protection solely on publication, the Act related it to the author's life by providing protection for twenty-eight years or the life of the author, whichever was longer. This marked a major conceptual evolution in copyright. The lapse of the Licensing Act ended pre-publication censorship and radically changed the power of the state to regulate the press, but it did not totally end regulation.