It Will Be Noticed How Closely the Copyright Act of 1709-10 followed the Patent System for Inventions, as Preserved in the Statute of Monopolies of 1623

In view of the claims which the Stationers' Company had hitherto made, the terms of the Copyright Act of 1709-10 are significant. In the case of existing books, the Act gave the authors, or if they had transferred their rights (which, of course, they almost invariably had) the then proprietors, the sole right of printing them for twenty-one years and no longer. In the case of new books, the author was given the sole right of printing them for fourteen years from the date of publication, and, if then still living, for one further term of fourteen years. The penalty for pirating was forfeiture and a fine of one penny per sheet, the protection extending only to books registered at the Stationers' Company. It will be noticed how closely the Act followed the patent system for inventions, as preserved in the Statute of Monopolies of 1623. The London booksellers, who must by then have despaired of ever securing the perpetual copyright which at one time they had claimed, had no reason to oppose the grant, enforceable in the Courts, of fourteen years of monopoly power for every new book they bought outright, although some of them subsequently protested when they realised that the second period of fourteen years granted to authors who were still living was the author's property to sell again.

--Arnold Plant, "The Economic Aspects of Copyright in Books," Economica 1, no. 2 (May 1934): 179-180.