1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910780992703321

Autore

Loewenstein Joseph <1952->

Titolo

The author's due [[electronic resource] ] : printing and the prehistory of copyright / / Joseph Loewenstein

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Chicago, : University of Chicago Press, 2002

ISBN

1-282-53719-9

9786612537196

0-226-49041-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (361 p.)

Disciplina

070.5/0942

070.50942

Soggetti

Book industries and trade - England - History

Printing - England - History

Book industries and trade - Law and legislation - England - History

Printing industry - Law and legislation - England - History

Copyright - England - History

Intellectual property - England - History

Authorship - History

English literature - Early modern, 1500-1700 - History and criticism

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 263-336) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- I. The Regulated Crisis of New Media -- II. From Protectionism to Property -- III. The Laughable Term -- Notes -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

The Author's Due offers an institutional and cultural history of books, the book trade, and the bibliographic ego. Joseph Loewenstein traces the emergence of possessive authorship from the establishment of a printing industry in England to the passage of the 1710 Statute of Anne, which provided the legal underpinnings for modern copyright. Along the way he demonstrates that the culture of books, including the idea of the author, is intimately tied to the practical trade of publishing those books. As Loewenstein shows, copyright is a form of monopoly that developed alongside a range of related protections such as



commercial trusts, manufacturing patents, and censorship, and cannot be understood apart from them. The regulation of the press pitted competing interests and rival monopolistic structures against one another-guildmembers and nonprofessionals, printers and booksellers, authors and publishers. These struggles, in turn, crucially shaped the literary and intellectual practices of early modern authors, as well as early capitalist economic organization. With its probing look at the origins of modern copyright, The Author's Due will prove to be a watershed for historians, literary critics, and legal scholars alike.