View source for Copyright in Historical Perspective

{{italic title}}
'''''Copyright in Historical Perspective''''' is an influential work of [[copyright]] scholarship by [[Lyman Ray Patterson]]. The book traces the history of English copyright from the outgoing 15th century to the late 19th century.
Starting with [[William Caxton]]'s introduction of the printing press to England, Patterson documents the regulation of publishing in England and the United States. He identifies censorship as a driving force in early regulation and provides a detailed account of its impact on private copyright of the publisher's guild, the [[Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers|Stationers' Company]]. He describes the system of [[printing patent]]s – [[letters patent]] based on the [[royal prerogative]] that co-existed with the Stationer's copyright and remained unaffected by the [[Statute of Anne]].
Based on Patterson's dissertation, the book was first published in 1968. As of 2010 it is still in print.
Kathy Bowrey ranks the books as one of two major contributions made by lawyers to the history of copyright:
{{quotation|The major contributions made by lawyers to the history of copyright date from the late 1960s when, within a year of each other, two American scholars, [[Benjamin Kaplan]] and [[Lyman Ray Patterson]], published their works. Of these two books Patterson’s offers the most detailed account of the development of copyright.<ref>{{cite journal
| author = Bowrey, Kathy
| year = 1996
| title = Who's writing copyright's history?
| journal = [[European Intellectual Property Review]]
| volume = 18
| issue = 6
| pages = 322–329
}}</ref>}}
While she further notes that later authors writing on publisher and author perspectives on copyright failed to acknowledge the contributions made by Kaplan and Patterson, the book has still been widely cited in the academic literature. Then future [[United States Supreme Court]] Justice [[Stephen Breyer]], for instance, relied on Patterson in "[[The Uneasy Case for Copyright]]",<ref>{{cite journal
| author = Breyer, Stephen
| authorlink = Stephen Breyer
| year = 1970
| title = The Uneasy Case for Copyright: A Study of Copyright in Books, Photocopies, and Computer Programs
| journal = [[Harvard Law Review]]
| volume = 84
| issue = 2
| pages = 281–351
| doi = 10.2307/1339714
| jstor = 1339714
| publisher = The Harvard Law Review Association
}}</ref> a law review article written when Breyer was a practicing legal academic.
==References==
* {{cite book
| last = Patterson
| first = Lyman Ray
| authorlink = Lyman Ray Patterson
| year = 1968
| title = Copyright in Historical Perspective
| publisher = [[Vanderbilt University Press]]
| isbn = 0-585-22298-3
}}
* [[Pamela Samuelson]], [http://www.law.berkeley.edu/php-programs/faculty/facultyPubsPDF.php?facID=346&pubID=130 "Copyright and Freedom of Expression in Historical Perspective"], ''Journal of Intellectual Property Law'', v.10, n.2 (Spring 2003).
; Notes
{{Reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Copyright In Historical Perspective}}
[[Category:1968 non-fiction books]]
[[Category:Copyright law literature]]
[[Category:History of copyright law]]
[[Category:Books about legal history]]
[[Category:Economics of intellectual property]]
{{US-law-book-stub}}