Cum privilegio: Licensing of the Press Act of 1662

C opyright has troubled humans for almost as long as our thoughts have been recorded. The ancient Greeks, Jews, and Romans all set down laws concerning an author’s personal rights, a sponsor/publisher’s economic rights, an owner’s rights to an individual copy, and a ruler’s right to censor and to regulate the industry. The Church and various governments ðboth totalitarian and democraticÞ have tried copyrighting any number of times. We are still at it today. As of the writing of this piece, currently pending in Washington is legislation that some have referred to as “the next great copyright act” ðPallante 2013Þ. This act—if it ever comes to pass—will have the American government ruling on procedures regarding such varied property as orphan works, musical recordings, film, and fashion design, particularly as they relate to digitization and the Internet. As Maria A. Pallante, register of copyrights of the United States and director of the US Copyright Office, has explained the act, “It must confirm and rationalize certain fundamental aspects of the law, including the ability of authors and their licensees to control and exploit their creative works, whether content is distributed on the street or streamed from the cloud. And it must provide sufficient clarity to those who seek to use protected works” ðPallante 2013, 324Þ. One of the most influential documents in the history of Anglo-American copyright is the Licensing of the Press Act of 1662—mostly for its negative effects ðfig. 1Þ. Charles II had returned to the English throne in 1660 and was appalled at the state of printing in his realm. Seditious, irreligious, pernicious, and scandalous books and pamphlets flooded the streets of London ðamong them the works of Milton and HobbesÞ. In order to censor the unruly, this king had Parliament enact “An Act for preventing the frequent Abuses in printing seditious treasonable and unlicensed Bookes and Pamphlets and for regulating of Printing and Printing Presses” (Licensing of the Press Act, 1662, 14 Car. II, c. 33; also see Deazley 2008a). It achieved its stated purpose with a variety of provisions, almost all of them reenactments of similar provisions in an order of the Star Chamber of 1637 ðwhich itself was preceded by other