[Sca-cooks] Period copyright

[Terry Decker]

It's a grant of royal privilege permitting the exploitation of whatever 
property specified as the Crown directs.  Within the Crown's domain, such a 
privilege could be enforced by the courts.  Outside the Crown's domain, it 
is essentially unhenforceable.  It was not standard to all texts, but 
granted to selected printers and selected texts.  IIRC, the first general 
copyright law was issued by Queen Anne of England in 1710.  From that, 
copyright laws were introduced in various nations.  Modern copyright law is 
a mixture of national law and international treaty.

Bear


> I'm still slogging through the prose, but Rumpolt includes a letter from 
> Rudolf the second, that appears to be a 10 year copy protection, asking 
> that no one else reprint it for those ten years. I wonder if that was at 
> all a standard for printed books?  Or what enforced it?
>
> Ranvaig