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''Millar v Taylor'' (1769) 4 Burr. 2303, 98 ER 201Millar v Taylor (1769)
/ref> is an
English court The courts of England and Wales, supported administratively by His Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service, are the civil and criminal courts responsible for the administration of justice in England and Wales. The United Kingdom does not have a ...
decision that held there is a perpetual
common law copyright Common law copyright is the legal doctrine that grants copyright protection based on common law of various jurisdictions, rather than through protection of statutory law. In part, it is based on the contention that copyright is a natural right an ...
and that no works ever enter the
public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...
. It represented a major victory for the bookseller monopolies.


Facts

Andrew Millar Andrew Millar (17058 June 1768) was a British publisher in the eighteenth century. Biography In 1725, as a twenty-year-old bookseller apprentice, he evaded Edinburgh city printing restrictions by going to Leith to print, which was considered be ...
was a bookseller who in 1729 had purchased the publishing rights to James Thomson's poem '' The Seasons''. After the term of the exclusive rights granted under the
Statute of Anne The Statute of Anne, also known as the Copyright Act 1710 (cited either as 8 Ann. c. 21 or as 8 Ann. c. 19), was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain passed in 1710, which was the first statute to provide for copyright regulated by the g ...
expired, Robert Taylor began publishing his own competing publication, which contained Thomson's poem. Following the creation of the first statutory copyright law in 1710 (via the
Statute of Anne The Statute of Anne, also known as the Copyright Act 1710 (cited either as 8 Ann. c. 21 or as 8 Ann. c. 19), was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain passed in 1710, which was the first statute to provide for copyright regulated by the g ...
), as rights belonging to an author (rather than to printers or publishers), the lapse of the Licensing Act 1662 in 1695 and Parliament's refusal to renew the licensing regime (1695), the practice of the English publishing
oligopoly An oligopoly (from Greek ὀλίγος, ''oligos'' "few" and πωλεῖν, ''polein'' "to sell") is a market structure in which a market or industry is dominated by a small number of large sellers or producers. Oligopolies often result from ...
had not changed much. Though the purpose of the new law was to break up the monopolies that had been created by the
English Crown This list of kings and reigning queens of the Kingdom of England begins with Alfred the Great, who initially ruled Wessex, one of the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which later made up modern England. Alfred styled himself King of the Anglo-Sax ...
 – which had served, in part, as a basis for the previous
English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians ("Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of Kingdom of England, England's governanc ...
 – there had been relatively little success in weakening the hold of the
Stationers' Company The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers (until 1937 the Worshipful Company of Stationers), usually known as the Stationers' Company, is one of the livery companies of the City of London. The Stationers' Company was formed i ...
over the publishing industry. Despite the Statute of Anne's changes to the
statutory law Statutory law or statute law is written law passed by a body of legislature. This is opposed to oral or customary law; or regulatory law promulgated by the executive or common law of the judiciary. Statutes may originate with national, state legi ...
, some publishers continued to claim perpetual publishing rights under common law. Starting in the 1740s, London booksellers presented that argument in a series of court cases, after they had failed to convince Parliament to extend the statutory term of copyright.


Judgment

The Court of the King's Bench, led by
Lord Mansfield William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, PC, SL (2 March 170520 March 1793) was a British barrister, politician and judge noted for his reform of English law. Born to Scottish nobility, he was educated in Perth, Scotland, before moving to Lon ...
(with Aston and Willes JJ concurring in judgment, Sir Joseph Yates dissenting), sided with the publishers, finding that common law rights were not extinguished by the
Statute of Anne The Statute of Anne, also known as the Copyright Act 1710 (cited either as 8 Ann. c. 21 or as 8 Ann. c. 19), was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain passed in 1710, which was the first statute to provide for copyright regulated by the g ...
. Under Mansfield's ruling, the publishers had a perpetual common law right to publish a work for which they had acquired the rights. Thus, no amount of time would cause the work to pass to the public. The ruling essentially found that some works would have a perpetual term of copyright, by holding that when the statutory rights granted by the statute expired, the publisher was still left with common law rights to the work. Although this would greatly extend the control of the rights holder this would not extinguish the
public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...
since there would still be works unaffected by the ruling, and the public domain extends to unprotected elements in protected works. Millar died shortly after the ruling and it was never appealed. As an English court, however, the court's decision did not extend to
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...
, where a reprint industry continued to thrive. The existence of a common-law copyright, however, was later rejected by a Scottish court in ''
Hinton v Donaldson ''Hinton v Donaldson'' (1773, 5 Brn 508) was a case by which the Court of Session rejected the claim that copyright in Scots law existed beyond the limited term which had been introduced under the Statute of Anne. The case had been brought by a ...
''. Perpetual copyright was ultimately resolved against the London publishing monopolies in the landmark case of ''
Donaldson v Beckett ''Donaldson v Becket'' (1774) 2 Brown's Parl. Cases (2d ed.) 129, 1 Eng. Rep. 837; 4 Burr. 2408, 98 Eng. Rep. 257; 17 Cobbett's Parl. Hist. 953 is the ruling by the British House of Lords that held that copyright in published works was not perpet ...
''. Despite being overturned, the case of ''Millar v Taylor'' remains an important case in the development and
history of copyright The history of copyright starts with early privileges and monopolies granted to printers of books. The British Statute of Anne 1710, full title "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or purc ...
law.


See also

* Copyright *
Copyright law of the United Kingdom Under the law of United Kingdom, a copyright is an intangible property right subsisting in certain qualifying subject-matter. Copyright law is governed by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (the 1988 Act), as amended from time to time. A ...
*
History of copyright The history of copyright starts with early privileges and monopolies granted to printers of books. The British Statute of Anne 1710, full title "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or purc ...
*
List of leading legal cases in copyright law The following is a list of cases that deal with issues of concern to copyright in various jurisdictions. Some of these cases are leading English cases as the law of copyright in various Commonwealth jurisdictions developed out of English law whil ...


References


Footnotes

{{reflist


References

* Paul Goldstein. ''Copyright's Highway: From Gutenberg to the Celestial Jukebox.'' New York: Hill and Wang, 1994. *
Lawrence Lessig Lester Lawrence Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American academic, attorney, and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvar ...
. ''Free Culture''. New York: Penguin Press, 2004. *
Lyman Ray Patterson Lyman Ray Patterson (18 February 1929 – 5 November 2003) was an American law professor and an influential copyright scholar and historian. Biography Patterson was born in Macon, Georgia. He graduated from Mercer University, and obtained a ...
. ''
Copyright in Historical Perspective ''Copyright in Historical Perspective'' is an influential work of copyright scholarship by Lyman Ray Patterson. The book traces the history of Anglo-Saxon copyright from the outgoing 15th century to the late 19th century. Starting with William Ca ...
''. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1968. *Lyman Ray Patterson and Stanley W. Lindberg. ''The Nature of Copyright: A Law of Users' Rights''. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1991. 1769 in case law 1769 in British law Lord Mansfield cases United Kingdom copyright case law Court of King's Bench (England) cases