II
The Early History of Copyright
In classic
timesOur traditions of the blind Homer, singing his Iliad in the multitudinous places of his protean nativity, do not vouchsafe us any information as to the status of authors in his day. There seems indeed to be no indication of author's rights or literary property in Greek or earlier literatures. But there is mention in Roman literature of the sale of playright by the dramatic authors, as Terence; and Rome had booksellers who sold copies of poems written out by slaves, and who seem to have been protected by some kind of "courtesy of the trade," since Martial names certain booksellers who had specific poems of his for sale. Horace complains that the Sosius brothers, his publishers, got gold while he got only fame — but this may have been a clcissic "author's grumble." Cicero in his letters indicates that there was some notion of literary property, and it is prob- able that some kind of payment was made to authors.
Roman
lawThe Roman jurist Gaius, probably of the second century, held that where an artist had painted upon a tabula, his was the superior right. And this opinion was adopted by Tribonian, chief editor of the code of Justinian, in the sixth century, and was applied in a modern question in respect to John Leech's drawings upon wood.
Monastic
copyistsIn the early Christian centuries, the monasteries became the seats of learning, and the scriptorium or writing room, in connection with the librarium or armarium, — the armory in which the weapons of the
