Page:Copyright, Its History And Its Law (1912).djvu/55

, which left the punishment of piracy a matter of damages at common law, requiring a separate action for each copy sold, usually against irresponsible people. Piracy again flourished. The right at common law seems, however, to have been unquestioned, and the Court of Common Pleas held that a plaintiff who had purchased from the executors of an author was owner of the property at common law. Owners of literary property petitioned Parliament, 1703 to 1709, for security and redress, declaring that the property of English authors had always been held as sacred among the traders, that conveyance gave just and legal title, that the property was the same with houses and other estates, and that existing "copies" had cost at least £50,000, and had been used in marriage settlements and were the subsistence of many widows and orphans. This led to the famous statute of Anne, introduced in 1709, and passed March, 1710, " for the encouragement of learning," said to have been drawn in its original form by Swift, which remains the practical foundation of copyright in England and America to-day.