We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
PART IV: PETITIONS, CASES AND PAPERS.
- Abstract
Since that wise and just decision, your humble petitioners have observed, with concern, that a few booksellers in London, under the name of the booksellers of London and Westminster, have brought in a bill before this Honourable House for an exclusive privilege of printing books that are without the statute of the 8th of Queen Anne, for a limited time; and for a further extension of right beyond what is granted to authors and their assigns by that act. As a monopoly will be so very prejudicial in the lowest class of books, so it will be to the second, which are the common books in estimation, such as Pope, Swift, Spectators, Rambler, &c. This will evidently appear from comparing the editions of books that were published from the expiration of the monopoly in 1731, till about the year 1760 (when the Booksellers began to entertain hope of a perpetual one) with the new editions of old copies printed since that time; and more particularly since the judgment of the Court of King's Bench. The Booksellers paid a valuable Consideration for their Copies, Mr. I Donaldson i paid no B {3} b Consideration for his Copies, and the Booksellers therefore humbly hope that the Wisdom as well as the Equity of Parliament will think them proper Objects of Relief: The Counter-Petitioners exclaim against the present Solicitation, as an Attempt to introduce an I ex post facto i Law; yet the Booksellers flatter themselves that the Nature of the Case will sufficiently extenuate such a Circumstance, since they could not apply for a Remedy to any Grievance, till the Grievance actually existed.
- Subjects
COPYING; PETITIONS; PREJUDICES; TRADE regulation; LAW reform; BRITISH authors; COPYRIGHT lawsuits; POUND sterling
- Publication
Parliamentary History, 2022, Vol 41, Issue 1, p378
- ISSN
0264-2824
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/1750-0206.12657