Authors and Owners: The Invention of Copyright

by Mark Rose

Overview

The notion of the author as the creator and therefore the first owner of a work is deeply rooted both in our economic system and in our concept of the individual. But this concept of authorship is modern. Mark Rose traces the formation of copyright in eighteenth-century Britain—and in the process highlights still current issues of intellectual property. Authors and Owners is at once a fascinating look at an important episode in legal history and a significant contribution to literary and cultural history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674053090
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	08/11/1995
Edition description:	REPRINT
Pages:	190
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Mark Rose is Research Professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Table of Contents

1. The Question of Literary Property

2. The Regime of Regulation

3. Making Copyright

4. The Author in Court

5. Baffle of the Booksellers

6. Literary Property Determined

7. Property/Originality/Personality

8. Strange Changes

Appendix A. Documents Related to Pope V. Curll

Appendix B. Justice Nares' Vote in Donaldson v. Becket

Works Cited

Index

Editorial Reviews

An elegant book; stylishly written, pleasingly designed and meticulously documented and researched.

Times Higher Education Supplement - Jane Dorner

[An] elegant and concise study.

London Review of Books - John Sutherland

Serves as a model of how literary theory can breathe new life into a well-known and perhaps even fashionable subject by endowing it with conceptual discipline.

Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 - Richard Wendorf

[Rose’s] erudite book is not a practitioner’s manual nor an exposition of modern copyright law, but is a valuable contribution to the history and philosophy of copyright.

Canadian Business Law Journal - William L. Hayhurst

Serves as a model of how literary theory can breathe new life into a well-known and perhaps even fashionable subject by endowing it with conceptual discipline.

1500-1900 Studies in English Literature

[Rose's] erudite book is not a practitioner's manual nor an exposition of modern copyright law, but is a valuable contribution to the history and philosophy of copyright.
— William L. Hayhurst

Canadian Business Law Journal

An elegant book; stylishly written, pleasingly designed and meticulously documented and researched.
— Jane Dorner

Times Higher Education Supplement

[An] elegant and concise study.
— John Sutherland

London Review of Books

Examines the genesis and development of the notion of authors as owners, and their works as commodities, from its emergence in the 18th century, to the issues of literary property still being debated. The already mystified figure of Shakespeare loomed large in the discussions before and after the first copyright law in 1707; he came out wearing the modern garb of a proprietor. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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