Page 39 - A Study on the Role of UGC Platforms in Copyright Law：An Intermediary-oriented Approach

A Study on the Role of UGC Platforms in Copyright Law: Chapter 2 Copyright in the Pre-Internet Age: An Intermediary-oriented Approach
An Intermediary-oriented Approach

such as presses and types, storing consumables such as paper and ink, and employing skilled
43
labour. The return on investment was slow. Most consumers could not afford the cost, and
hence a professional, self-funded intermediary was needed to assume the considerable debt
at the outset and recover it through the economies of scale of printing.
With expectations for rapid returns, printers were willing to finance both the production
44
and the distribution of books, and establish relationships with booksellers nationwide. In
45
the 16 century, printers also undertook the functions of publishers and booksellers. Two
th
46
centuries later, publishers internalised the roles of printers and booksellers. Publishers,
47
printers and booksellers were all called stationers. Regardless of the slight difference
48
between these professions, in this thesis they are used interchangeably. With the increase
in literacy and the expansion of the market for published books, publishers became the
first-generation intermediaries in the history of copyright and established the publishing
industry. 49
2) Overcoming freeriding: Royal privileges for the publishing intermediaries
Due to the decline in the cost of re-publishing, and the commercialisation of printing
books, publishers suffered from a new problem that previous scribes had not encountered:
freeriding. Although both the initial and subsequent publishing entailed fixed expenses
for printing, the first publisher was responsible for the royalty to the author and the cost
involved with transforming the manuscript into a book. This included composing type into
pages, correcting the mistakes made by the author and designing plates for the jackets. The
subsequent publisher could directly photocopy the pages of an already edited book, and
50
free-ride on the promotional efforts made by the initial publisher. Consequently, publishers
appealed for an exclusive right to print books to prevent freeriding. The Crown supported
the publishers’ petition, awarding a series of printing patents, privileges and monopolies
to individual publishers who gained the exclusive right to print and sell specific books or
51
category of books.
The privileges granted were due less to the Crown’s sympathy for the economic interests
of private parties than to the desire of the Crown and the Catholic Church to ensure that

43 Feather, ‘A History of British Publishing’ (n 34) 24.
44 Ibid. 62.
45 Ibid. 4.
46 Ibid. 4.
47 Ibid. 4.
48 John Feather, Publishing, Piracy and Politics: An Historical Study of Copyright in Britain (Burns & Oates 1994) 30.
49 Ibid. 168.
50 Stephen Breyer, ‘The Uneasy Case for Copyright: A Study of Copyright in Books, Photocopies, and Computer Programs’
(1970) 84 Harvard Law Review 281, 294.
51 Lyman Ray Patterson, Copyright in Historical Perspective (Vanderbilt University Press 1968) 79.

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