THE STATUTE OF ANNE

          The Statute of Anne was the first copyright statute (law) in the Kingdom of Great Britain. It was entered into force on 10 April 1710 by the Queen at the time, Anne Stuart. (This accounts for the 'Anne' in the statute's name) It is also generally considered to be the first full-fledged copyright statute and because of this, it is now seen as the origin of copyright. There are two other names for this: 'The Copyright Act 1709' and 'An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned'. (This is, however a bit of a mouth full) The Statute was forced by parliament after the 1707 unification of the parliaments if England and Scotland.
           What the Statute actually did was a new idea and similar Acts were later introduced in Denmark and The United States. The law firstly said that an 'author' (of a book etc.) was the owner of copyright for his publishings and that there was a fixed term of protection for published works. It was in fact John Milton (Paradise Lost) who sparked the debate over copyright with his work which eventually lead to the Statute of Anne being introduced.
            The Statute of Anne was so important because it shaped copyright for the future and for the entire world. If it wasn't proving successful then we wouldn't still have its decrees today. I think that the idea of recognising an author's work and not subjecting it to fraud is very important. This law has also helped the economy as it makes money from publications rather than losing money which probably would have happened without the Statute.