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Copyright was first established by governments and the Church prior to the invention of corporations.

• Zambyte 1y ago
  > The concept of copyright first developed in England. In reaction to the printing of "scandalous books and pamphlets", the English Parliament passed the Licensing of the Press Act 1662, which required all intended publications to be registered with the government-approved Stationers' Company, giving the Stationers the right to regulate what material could be printed. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright Okay, not a corporation, but a company.
• dragonwriter 1y ago
  > Copyright was first established by governments and the Church prior to the invention of corporations. No, it wasn't. The first copyright law is generally held to be the Statute of Anne (1710) in Britain (the Licensing of the Press Act of 1662 which preceded it was not a "copyright law" in the sense that it did not provide for ownership of a right to publish/print particular works, but provided, as the name suggested, for licensing of printing presses, and revocation of said licenses -- it was more of a general censorship law); and even if you limit the scope to Britain (well, in either case, England before the Union with Scotland) corporations go back further (depending on whether you mean corporations as "entities which are not natural persons with legal personality"—the City of London Corporation's establishment is literally lost to history, but known to predate the Norman Conquest—or "joint stock companies"—the Company of Merchant Adventurers to New Lands in 1551 would be the first.)