ABSTRACT
The Copyright Act of 1710 is one of the major landmarks in the public history of the British book-trade. It was the first statute to recognize the legal existence of the right to publish a copy, and that this was a piece of property which ipso facto had an owner. To those members of the trade who had agitated for new legislation ever since the old Printing Act had finally lapsed in 1695 it represented a substantial victory, granting them the rights they sought while not reimposing the irksome requirements of pre-publication censorship.2 It is, however, rather less obvious what effect the Act actually had on the internal workings of the trade. The leading booksellers who owned copies or shares in them continued to operate after 10 April 1710 in much the same way as they had before that day. Some twenty years were to elapse before the difficulties of the Act became so apparent that the trade had to return to Parliament and the courts to reinforce the rights which it thought it had established in 171 O.
