source texts/copyright history

[Karl-Erik Tallmo <tallmo@xxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

Hopefully, this could be a reference source of interest to the list members.

I have uploaded a few texts from the history of copyright: Donaldson
v. Beckett, from 1774 and the Fichte text "Beweis der
Unrechtmd_igkeit des B|chernachdrucks" from 1793.

Donaldson v. Beckett was the trial which finally ended the so-called
Battle of Booksellers, that had been going on since the passing of
the statute of Anne in 1710. In several trials during more than 60
years both the book industry and the judges had been fighting over
the question whether the Statute of Anne really abolished a common
law perpetual copyright or not.
See http://www.copyrighthistory.com/donaldson.html

In the text "Beweis der Unrechtmd_igkeit des B|chernachdrucks" Fichte
was among the first - if not the very first - to clearly distinguish
between form and content, thus elevating form to a kind of personal
property worth protecting.
See http://www.copyrighthistory.com/fichte.html (in German with
English comments and excerpts.)

Those texts were actually intended to be included in a book I am
writing but since my health is very poor, that project seems to be
very much delayed, so I might as well upload the stuff. It has been
lying around scanned and ready for three years already ...

(The first copyright law in the world has also been available at the
site for some time, the  Statute of Anne from 1710, see
http://www.copyrighthistory.com/anne.html)


Karl-Erik Tallmo

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