* 1710 – The Statute of Anne, the first law regulating copyright, enters into force in Great Britain.

The Statute of Anne came into force in 1710.

The British Statute of Anne ( 1710 ) further alluded to individual rights of the artist, beginning: " Whereas Printers, Booksellers, and other Persons, have of late frequently taken the Liberty of Printing ... Books, and other Writings, without the Consent of the Authors ... to their very great Detriment, and too often to the Ruin of them and their Families :" A right to benefit financially from the work is articulated, and court rulings and legislation have recognized a right to control the work, such as ensuring that the integrity of it is preserved.

The Statute of Anne was the first real copyright act, and gave the publishers rights for a fixed period, after which the copyright expired.

The British Statute of Anne 1710 and the Statute of Monopolies 1623 are now seen as the origins of copyright and patent law respectively.

The Statute of Anne came into force in 1710

The Statute of Anne ( c. 19 ), an act of the Parliament of Great Britain, was the first statute to provide for copyright regulated by the government and courts, rather than by private parties.

This bill, which after substantial amendments was granted Royal Assent on 5 April 1710, became known as the Statute of Anne due to its passage during the reign of Queen Anne.

Despite a period of instability known as the Battle of the Booksellers when the initial copyright terms under the Statute began to expire, the Statute of Anne remained in force until the Copyright Act 1842 repealed it.

Whatever the motivations, the bill was passed on 5 April 1710, and is commonly known simply as the Statute of Anne due its passage during the reign of Queen Anne.

The Statute of Anne

Consisting of 11 sections, the Statute of Anne is formally titled " An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by Vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or Purchasers of Copies, during the Times therein mentioned ".

Their principal argument was that copyright had not been created by the Statute of Anne ; it existed beforehand, in the common law, and was perpetual.

The final decision, written by Lord Mansfield and endorsed by Aston and Willes JJ, confirmed that there existed copyright at common law that turned " upon Principles before and independent " of the Statute of Anne, something justified because it was right " that an Author should reap the pecuniary Profits of his own Ingenuity and Labour ".

After consulting with the judges of the King's Bench, Common Pleas and Exchequer of Pleas, the Lords concluded that there was no copyright at common law-certainly not perpetual copyright-and as such, that the term permitted by the Statute of Anne was the maximum length of legal protection for publishers and authors alike.

Frederick North, Lord North | Lord North, who expanded the provisions of the Statute of Anne in 1775.

Until its repeal, most extensions to copyright law were based around provisions found in the Statute of Anne.

This was intended to stop the influx of cheap books from Ireland, and also repealed the price restrictions in the Statute of Anne.

He also desired a unified law of copyright ; all the existing statutes were to be codified under the bill, and the case law that had arisen around the Statute of Anne was to be clarified.

Amongst other things, however, the Act did succeed in both extending copyright to life plus seven years, and, as part of the codification clauses, repealing the Statute of Anne.

The Statute of Anne is traditionally seen as " a historic moment in the development of copyright ", and the first statute in the world to provide for copyright.

* 1931-The Statute of Westminster makes all existing dominions fully independent of the United Kingdom, and provides that all new dominions shall be fully independent upon the grant of dominion status-thus, the term ' dominion ' no longer indicated an autonomous jurisdiction under imperial control but a sovereign state that differed from most others merely in having the same head of state as the United Kingdom ( a situation similar to the period between 1603 and 1707, when Scotland and England had the same monarch but each had their own fully independent governments ).

Since the implementation of the Statute of Westminster 1931 in each of the Commonwealth realms ( on successive dates from 1931 onwards ), the Act of Settlement cannot be altered in any realm except by that realm's own parliament and, by convention, only with the consent of all the other realms, as it touches on the succession to the shared throne.

An Imperial Conference in 1926 that included the leaders of all Dominions and representatives from India ( which then included Burma, Bangladesh, and Pakistan ), led to the eventual creation of the Statute of Westminster in 1931.

Along with the Statute of Westminster, 1931 this changed the way the British parliamentary monarchy ruled the overseas dominions, moving from a colonial British Empire towards a new structure for the interaction between the Commonwealth Realms and the Crown.

In addition, the Occupation Statute of 1949, which granted partial independence to the newly created Federal Republic of Germany, specifically forbade the imposition of import quotas to protect German film production from foreign competition, the result of lobbying by the American industry as represented by the MPAA.

The General Conference also approves the nominee for Director General and requests reports from the Board on issues in question ( Statute ).

The New Zealand monarchy has been distinct from the British monarchy since the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1947, and all Elizabeth II's official business in New Zealand is conducted in the name of the Queen of New Zealand, not the Queen of the United Kingdom.

Previously, publishers would have bought the original manuscript from writers for a lump sum ; with the passage of the Statute, they simply did the same thing, but with the manuscript's copyright as well.

Similarly, Belgium took no direct influence from the Statute or English copyright theory, but Joris Deene of the University of Ghent identifies an indirect influence " at two levels "; the criteria for what constitutes copyrightable material, which comes from the work of English theorists such as Locke and Edward Young, and the underlying justification of copyright law.

Under common law, the Statute of Frauds also applies to contract modification: for example, suppose party A makes an oral agreement to lease a car from party B for 9 months.

Section 6 of the Mercantile Law Amendment Act Scotland 1856 was derived from those parts of section 4 of the Statute of Frauds ( 1677 ) which relate to contracts of guarantee and from section 6 of the Statute of Frauds Amendment Act 1828.

* Despite the fact that the Statute of Westminster applied to the Dominion of Canada without any need for ratification, the British North America Acts, the current written elements ( in 1931 ) of the Canadian Constitution were excluded from the application of the Statute of Westminster.

In addition, Henry had solidified his denial of the papacy's control of England by passing the Statute of Praemunire which forbade appeals to the Roman Curia from England.

The thirteen historic counties of Wales were fixed by Statute in 1539 ( although counties such as Pembrokeshire date from 1138 ) and most of the shires of Scotland are of at least this age.

The second change he objected to was " the suppression of the word ' British ', both from before the words ' Realms and Territories ' where it is replaced by the words ' her other ' and from before the word ' Commonwealth ', which, in the Statute of Westminster, is described as the ' British Commonwealth of Nations '":

Since the implementation of the Statute of Westminster 1931 in each of the Commonwealth realms ( on successive dates from 1931 onwards ) the Bill of Rights cannot be altered in any realm except by that realm's own parliament, and then, by convention, and as it touches on the succession to the shared throne, only with the consent of all the other realms.

This began an accretion of provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy from the British Empire, which became official with the Statute of Westminster of 1931 and completed in the Canada Act of 1982, which severed the vestiges of legal dependence on the British parliament.

By the end of the First World War, the increased fortitude of Canadian nationalism inspired the country's leaders to push for greater independence from the King in his British Council, resulting in the creation of the uniquely Canadian monarchy through the Statute of Westminster, which was granted Royal Assent in 1931.

In the United States, the Copyright Clause of the United States Constitution and the first Federal copyright statute, the Copyright Act of 1790, both draw on the Statute of Anne.

The 1790 Act contains provisions for a 14-year term of copyright and sections that provide for authors who published their works before 1790, both of which mirror the protection offered by the Statute 80 years previously.

With exception of the provision on maps and charts the Copyright Act of 1790 is copied almost verbatim from the Statute of Anne.

With exception of the provision on maps and charts the Copyright Act of 1790 is copied almost verbatim from the Statute of Anne.

The Statute of Anne and the Copyright Act of 1790 both provided for an initial term of 14 years, renewable once by living authors for an additional 14 years, for works not yet published.