In 1557, Queen Mary chartered The Royal Company of Stationers. Members were people who originally only sold paper, but under the licensing act of 1662, a printer had to be a member of the guild of ‘The Royal Company of Stationers’ to print books in England. If anybody else tried to print books, the Stationers were authorized to seize and burn them. It was an even more robust control over publishing, though the guild was allowed to give exclusivity even to printers who did not have a separate royal patent.
Interestingly, the Stationers agreed to the requirement to deposit a copy of every newly printed book in the Oxford University library. This agreement was signed with Thomas Bodley in 1610, who was the Oxford librarian at the time, and the Library of Oxford still carries his name, the Bodleian Library.
The Royal Company of Stationers lapsed in 1695 with the lessening of the desire for hard censorship. Since other people were suddenly allowed to print books, the Stationers faced competition, so they began to lobby Parliament for a permanent renewal of this charter that would make them the sole publishers in England.
Their early efforts to get this charter failed until they changed their tactics: they began to stress that the benefits of restricting printing were to give rights to authors as unique and individual geniuses who created these works.
The Parliament was sympathetic to the needs of authors rather than to the needs of a particular guild that just wanted a monopoly business, so it was decided to ensure the benefits to authors, even though it is very often deployed by enterprises that are simply looking to avoid unwanted competition, as we still often see it today: we know the publishing industry, the recording industry, and the movie industry often making appeals to the well-being of creators when what’s happening is that trade regulations are being enacted.
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The author takes no responsibility for the content of this page, which is not intended as binding legal advice. The views are about copyright in the UK Higher Education sector context.
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