In 1794. legislation was inaugurated in the Prussian Parliament which was accepted by the other States of Germany (excepting Wurttemberg and Alecklenburg). under which all German au thors and foreign authors whose works were represented by publishers taking part in the hook fairs in Frankfort and Leipzig. were to be protected throughout the States of Germany against unauthorized reprints. This Berlin en actment may 1w credited as the first step toward a practical recognition of international copy right. It proved. however. difficult. at least until after 1815, to enforce the provisions of these interstate enactments.
The first copyright privilege in England bears date 1518 and was issued to Richard Pynson.
King's printer, the successor, second in line, to Caxton. The privilege gives a monopoly for the term of two years. The date is fifteen years later than that of the first privilege issued in France. In 1530, a privilege of seven years was granted to an author in consideration of the value of his work. This is cited by Scrutton as the first record of an English copyright issued to an author. Royal privileges continued to be issued during the sixteenth century, while, after 1556, the entries in the registers of the Stationers' Company are made evidence of the exclusive rights to the persons named for print ing the books specified. The Stationers' Com pany, in giving title to property in a `copy' or literary production, acted as the representative of the authority of the Crown, an authority se cured to it through royal charter. The control of the work of the Stationers was, in 1637, placed in the hands of the Star Chamber. The replacing in 1640 of the absolutism of the Star Chamber by the absolutism of the Long Parlia ment made no change in the completeness of the authority left with the Stationers' Company. The Parliamentary Ordinances of 1641, in pro hibiting printing or importing without the con sent of the owner of the 'copies' of said hooks, constituted a clear statutory recognition of prop erty in `copy,' a recognition evidently resting upon an understanding of its existence under the common law. The act of 1643 for "redressing disorders in printing," and the licensing act of 1662, while having for their main purpose the control of literature in connection with its in fluence on politics, continued to affirm or to imply the existence of property in the 'copy' of books. The English authorities on the sub ject, Maugham, Coppinger, Scrutton, and others, and the American Drone, are at one in the opin ion that at the close of the seventeenth century it was the general understanding in England that authors possessed in their productions a per petual right of property and that this right could he assigned. This understanding, upon which were based Parliamentary acts for regula tion and for license, and in accord with which were carried on important and continued busi ness undertakings, marked a development in the conception of literary property which had not then been reached elsewhere. The Act of Queen Anne,
which went into effect in 1710, under which a statutory protection for a term of fourteen years was given to the author of a literary production (with provision that if he were alive at the expi ration of that period, his copyright could be extended fourteen years), brought to a close, for Great Brita in, the period of common-law copyright. This result was probably not intended by the legis lators who framed the act and was certainly not anticipated by the publishers at whose instance the matter had been taken up and who were simply applying for a more specific and more effective protection. covering such term as Parliament might see fit to grant, for the property in their `copies,' of the existence of which property there had as yet been no question. It was, in fact, not until 1769 that any serious contention was raised against the continued validity of copyright at common law. In that year, the common-law right was maintained in the decision rendered in the famous case of Millar vs. Taylor. a de cision rendered the more noteworthy because it was concurred in by Lord Mansfield, the great cst authority on the subject of copyright whom Europe had thus far known. In 1774, in the case of Donaldson vs. Becket, the issue was raised for the second time, the property involved being the same in each suit, the copyright of Thomson's Seasons. In this case the House of Lords reversed its previous decision. Its con clusions were in substance: first, that an author had a common-law right to his production before publication (ten judges in the affirmative and one dissenting) ; second, that, after publication, such common-law right still rested in the author (eight judges in the affirmative and three in the negative) ; third, that, under the statute of 1710, the author had lost his right of action at common law and retained protection for his copyright only during the term prescribed by the statute (six judges in the affirmative and five in the negative) ; fourth, that the right at common law possessed by the author and his as signs prior to 1710 had been a right in per petuity (seven judges in the affirmative, four in the negative). In each of these votes, including that of the vital issue of the effect upon the com mon-law right of the statute of 1710. Lord Mans field was recorded in favor of the continued right of the author at common law, and of the per petuity of copyright. irrespective of the effect of this statute. The effect of this decision was, as said, to replace what may he called the common law period of a copyright in England by a copy right protection limited to the terms of the suc cessive statutes.