My first day .....

Yes I'm back at school again :) :)

I'm quite a bit behind the rest of the class - being the only person *not* to have gone to the the previous three summer schools - but hey I'm soaking it up and catching up as fast as I can.

Given how intensive the pace is, I've come down tot he State Library and nabbed some internet access time to transcribe my day's notes while I can still make some sense of them.  I don;t know if any of you will make any sense of them - but I thought seeing as I had to transcribe them anyway - I will put them here and then clean them up afterwards.

Books in Transition 1750-1850.

This is the transition period between when books were completely hand made and when they were completely machine made.

The dating is arbitrary and could easily be extended to 1890 when the first typesetting machines were introduced, but 1820-1830 saw the machinery changes be popularised.   This course is aimed specifically at English History, but does include elements from other countries.  Why England?  Because that is the academics speciality.

First a history of Copyright Law.

What is copy right?  It is the right of the printers to print the copy they hold.  They held this copy int he form of typeset for printing.  Include here definition of typeset and platens.  Publishers want copyright to exist.  They owned the rights to copy text.  They had this in their possession, it was an economic value that they owned and wished to preserve.

At this time, authors did not hold copyright to their own material.  They sold their material / manuscripts to the publishers/stationers entirely.  Milton sold his Paradise Lost for 5 pounds.  during this time the concept of authorship (except for playwrights) was unknown. Many medieval treatise were anonymous.  Eg who wrote Piers Ploughman in the 13th century?  We only know who printed the text.  During this time authors were rewarded by patronage and sinecures in government departments (ie being made Master of the Horse).  They were not paid for their work - they did not make their living out of each item published.

The only difference here was dramatists - during this time (1557) dramatists were paid on the third night their play was staged.


Side note: The industry was formulated differently at this time. There were:
Booksellers - small business printer and seller.  They held ownership of the copy they printed.
Stationers - booksellers with permanent stalls. At this time the Stationers Company was composed of essentially Master Printers. 

The status and job responsibilities for printers publishers and book sellers separated in the 1750-1850 time period.

From 1750-1850
Publishers - capitalists, copy holders, wholesalers., eg Longmans.
Printers - separate trade, eg Cambridge University Press.
Retail booksellers. 


1557.  Reign of Queen Mary.  Catholics again ruled England.  In 1557 the Stationer's Company was established.  This listed the Stationers on a register (for six pence) and they were accorded and recorded as having the rights to print a particular work.  They had the RIGHT to print COPY.  Duh Copyright.

The Crown and the Stationers had common interests.  The Crown gave rights to publish certain copy to particular stationers.  This allowed the Crown to censor or prevent publication of seditious and/or blasphemous publications.  The Stationers got a monopoly and protection of that monopoly.  Anyone printing texts outside the law could be prosecuted and their copy and equipment could be smashed or thrown into the Thames.

Curiously at the time, the Crown delegated all Censorship rights and duties tot he leading Religious order.

1670 - According tot he OED, this is the first time book copying is recorded as piracy.

1695 - Pre-publication censorship lapsed during the 1688 revolution. his was during the period of the Restoration of Monarchy.  Liberal attitudes now abounded, but the Stationers still wanted the protection of their financing publications.  They wanted protection of their monetary investment from literary pirates. Creation of the Licencing (printing) Act.

1710 - first Copy right Act (Act of Queen Anne),  This recognised for the first time the rights of authors.  This is formally known as the Act for Encouragement of Learning.  This established time limits to copyright.  Anything already in print was available for another 21 years.  Anything printed after 10 April 1710, the printer would only hold copyright for 14 years, but then they could register once more for a further 14 years.  (hhmmmmm multiples of 7 - biblical number!)

1729 - the copyrights started to expire.

1731 - 21 years - the old copyrights started to fail.  Shakespeare, Milton, the classics that generated the profits, were falling into public domain.

Scotland particularly started printing material in the common domain. 

1772 - London Booksellers brought a lawsuit against Scottish publisher Donaldson for printing items now in public domain.  Court found in favour of Donaldson.  London Booksellers appealed to the House of Lords.

1774 - Final decision of the House of Lords to declare that perpetual copyright no longer existed.    They also upheld the decision in favour of Donaldson.

A consequence of this is that the publishers/booksellers had to go and find *new* material.  They could no longer rely on a monopoly on the printing of classics to generate their profits. New authors came onto the scene.  Authors could negotiate with booksellers for better renumeratrion.  There started to be more equitable arrangements between authors and copy holders.  instead of always selling copyright outright, there started to be arrangements of shared profits (usually 50/50) or the publisher leased or licenced copyright from the author for 2 years.

Royalties eventually became the norm.  Probably most equitable is the current modern arrangement right now where the author gets 10% or 12.5% of the profit of each copy sold.

1842 - embodied modern principles of copyright.

This more than technology embodied the changes and transitions in Books between 1750 and 1850.

And here we broke for morning tea.

And my time on the Internet machine is up .... more tomorrow night .....