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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Before Queen Anne's statute of 1710, but after the printing press had been introduced into England in the mid 1500's, printers in the country were licensed by the Crown. So restrictions on copying have existed literally for as long as it has been feasible to copy on a mass scale.

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To add to what rayiner writes...

This mentions a "brevetto", or patent, being issued by the Republic of Venice in 1474:

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brevetto

The English version mentions that too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent

Also, from this book:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007Q6XKA8/?tag=dedasys-20

Talking about one of the first practical guides/manuals on how to do double-entry accounting.

"Pacioli was given a ten-year copyright on the initial publication and in 1508 he petitioned the Venetian Senate for a twenty-year copyright on any reprint of the original 1494 edition, which he was granted. This made him one of the first writers to be granted literary copyright."

Highly interesting read, by the way, despite a dull sounding subject.

Thank you for those interesting links. I never thought to explore Renaissance Italy's dabblings in this area even though it was a commercial/financial powerhouse at the time. Thanks for the heads-up on "brevetti". Grazie mille.

Indeed. Copyright is ultimately an outgrowth of the privatization of government censorship in sixteenth-century England.

For those interested, a readable summary of the history of copyright can be found at: http://questioncopyright.org/promise

Falkvinge himself also has a multi-part history of copyright blog series, found at: http://falkvinge.net/2011/02/01/history-of-copyright-part-1-...

> Indeed. Copyright is ultimately an outgrowth of the privatization of government censorship in sixteenth-century England.

So when it appeared in 15th century Venice as a means to encourage authorship, we are to presume that it was Dr. Who who brought it there?

Your history of copyright source is - I'm guessing - likely to be a little bit biased.

Very true. Perhaps I should have said that prior to Queen Anne's statute of 1710 there was no robust national legislation? Would that be better. I did mention there was precedent :)

Really nice video on this _exciting_ topic btw

Video talk on Hyde’s book, Common as Air:

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/events/2011/hyde

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