The Issues of Censorship and Copyright Were Closely Linked in the Eighteenth Century, As They Are Today; Copyright Is a Form of Monopoly Pricing Most Readers out of the Market

Indeed, the issues of censorship and copyright were closely linked in the eighteenth century, as they are today. Copyright is a form of monopoly, and long copyright terms restrict the circulation of books by eliminating competition and reducing production, thereby pricing most readers out of the market. Although the 1710 ‘‘Copyright Act’’ stipulated a fourteen-year copyright term, renewable once, stationers claimed a perpetual common law right in their copies independent of the statute; most argued their cases successfully in chancery for decades, until the House of Lords ruled against perpetual copyright in 1774. In the pivotal case of Donaldson v. Beckett (1774), Lord Effingham expressed concern that lengthy copyright terms impinged on the ‘‘Liberty of the Press,’’ thus ‘‘choaking the channel of public information.’’ Lord Chief Justice DeGrey and Lord Camden lamented the ‘‘engrossing’’ of knowledge that perpetual copyright allowed, Camden declaring that ‘‘science and learning are in their nature publici juris, and they ought to be as free and general as air or water.’’ In his landmark study The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period, William St. Clair concludes that the ‘‘high monopoly period’’ from 1710 to 1774 impeded the dissemination of books, a finding that ratifies the peers’ concern.

--Randy Robertson, Censorship and Conflict in Seventeenth-Century England: The Subtle Art of Division, The Penn State Series in the History of the Book (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009), 202-203.