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What can and can’t be copied is a matter of law, but also of aesthetics, culture, and economics. The act of copying, and the creation and transaction of rights relating to it, evokes fundamental notions of communication and censorship, of authorship and ownership – of privilege and property.This volume conceives a new history of copyright law that has its roots in a wide range of norms and practices. The essays reach back to the very material world of craftsmanship and mechanical inventions of Renaissance Italy where, in 1469, the German master printer Johannes of Speyer obtained a five-year exclusive privilege to print in Venice and its dominions. Along the intellectual journey that follows, we encounter John Milton who, in 1644 accused the English parliament of having been deceived by the ‘fraud of some old patentees and monopolizers in the trade of bookselling’ (i.e. the London Stationers’ Company).Later revisionary essays investigate the regulation of the printing press in the North American colonies as a provincial and somewhat crude version of European precedents, and how, in the revolutionary France of 1789, the subtle balance that the royal decrees had established between the interests of the author, the bookseller, and the public, was shattered by the abolition of the privilege system. Some of the essays also address the specific evolution of rights associated with the visual and performing arts.The volume is a companion to the digital archive Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900), funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).Privilege and Property is recommended in the Times Higher Education Textbook Guide (November, 2010).Contents :IntroductionThe History of Copyright History: Notes from an Emerging DisciplineMartin Kretschmer, with Lionel Bently and Ronan Deazley1. From Gunpowder to Print: The Common Origins of Copyright and PatentJoanna Kostylo2. ‘A Mongrel of Early Modern Copyright’: Scotland in European PerspectiveAlastair J. Mann3. The Public Sphere and the Emergence of Copyright: Areopagitica, the Stationers’ Company, and the Statute of AnneMark Rose4. Early American Printing Privileges. The Ambivalent Origins of Authors’ Copyright in AmericaOren Bracha5. Author and Work in the French Print Privileges System: Some MilestonesLaurent Pfister6. A Venetian Experiment on Perpetual CopyrightMaurizio Borghi7. Copyright Formalities and the Reasons for their Decline in Nineteenth Century EuropeStef van Gompel8. The Berlin Publisher Friedrich Nicolai and the Reprinting Sections of the Prussian Statute Book of 1794Friedemann Kawohl9. Nineteenth Century Controversies Relating to the Protection of Artistic Property in FranceFrédéric Rideau10. Maps, Views and Ornament: Visualising Property in Art and Law: The Case of Pre-modern FranceKatie Scott11. Breaking the Mould? The Radical Nature of the Fine Arts Copyright Bill 1862Ronan Deazley12. ‘Neither Bolt nor Chain, Iron Safe nor Private Watchman, Can Prevent the Theft of Words’: The Birth of the Performing Right in BritainIsabella Alexander13. The Return of the Commons – Copyright History as a Common SourceKarl-Nikolaus Peifer14. The Significance of Copyright History for Publishing History and HistoriansJohn Feather15. Metaphors of Intellectual PropertyWilliam St ClairBibliographyIndexTitle: Privilege and PropertySubtitle: Essays on the History of CopyrightEditors: Deazley, RonanKretschmer, MartinBently, LionelPublication date: June 2010Number of pages: xii + 438Dimensions: 6.14” x 9.21” | 234mm x 156mmIllustrations: 11 black and whiteBIC Subject Codes: LNRC (Copyright law), HBTB (Social &#38; cultural history)