Statute of Anne

10 April 1710: commencement, not enactment

On 10 April 1710 Old Style, five days after royal assent, the principal copyright provisions of the Statute of Anne came into force throughout Great Britain.

Royal assent had been given on 5 April. Accounts that say the statute was "passed" on 10 April conflate enactment with taking effect.

Twenty-one years, then fourteen and fourteen

From that date, authors who had retained their rights — and the booksellers, printers or others who had bought them — held the sole statutory liberty to print qualifying existing books for 21 years.

Unpublished or future books carried a 14-year term for the author or assignee, with a second 14-year term returning to an author who was alive when the first expired.

The right was in books and the liberty of printing or reprinting them, not in every category of creative work. Authors could sell it straight back to booksellers.

Penalties, nine copies, and a power over prices

Unauthorized printing, importing or sale brought forfeiture of the infringing sheets, which were ordered to be made into waste paper, plus a penny for every infringing sheet found — half for the Crown, half for the person who sued.

Printers had to supply nine copies on their best paper for specified libraries before publication. Registration and legal deposit both ran through the Stationers' Company.

The statute also empowered senior judges, bishops and university officials to reduce book prices they judged unreasonably high.