Introduction. The history of copyright history : notes from an emerging discipline / Martin Kretschmer, with Lionel Bently and Ronan Deazley -- From gunpowder to print : the common origins of copyright and patent / Joanna Kostylo -- 'A mongrel of early modern copyright' : Scotland in European perspective / Alastair J. Mann -- Public sphere and the emergence of copyright : Areopagitica, the Stationers' Company, and the Statute of Anne / Mark Rose -- Early American printing privileges. The ambivalent origins of authors' copyright in America / Oren Bracha -- Author and work in the French print privileges system : some milestones / Laurent Pfister -- Venetian experiment on perpetual copyright / Maurizio Borghi -- Copyright formalities and the reasons for their decline in nineteenth century Europe / Stef van Gompel -- Berlin publisher Friedrich Nicolai and the reprinting sections of the Prussian Statute Book of 1794 / Friedemann Kawohl -- Nineteenth century controversies relating to the protection of artistic property in France / Frédéric Rideau -- Maps, views and ornament : visualising property in art and law. The case of pre-modern France / Katie Scott -- Breaking the mould? The radical nature of the Fine Arts Copyright Bill 1862 / Ronan Deazley -- 'Neither bolt nor chain, iron safe nor private watchman, can prevent the theft of words' : the birth of the performing right in Britain / Isabella Alexander -- Return of the commons - copyright history as a common source / Karl-Nikolaus Peifer -- Significance of copyright history for publishing history and historians / John Feather -- Metaphors of intellectual property / William St Clair -- Bibliography -- Index.