Upright Piracy: Understanding the Lack of Copyright for Journalism in Eighteenth-Century Britain

Abstract

The growth of newspapers and other periodicals in England after 1695 raised a new question: in the absence of licensing, could these writings be protected against unauthorized reprinting? The Act of Anne (1710), which provided authors and proprietors with a limited copyright for their books, did not mention periodicals, but competition among essay sheets in the 1710s did lead some proprietors to register their periodicals under the Act. In the 1730s, the appearance of monthly magazines led to an important debate about the legitimacy of reprinting articles from periodicals. In subsequent decades changes in the business of news and the journalistic culture of London made it increasingly difficult to imagine that accounts of current events could be owned.

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