Another interesting part of this was that early on,
the stationers agreed to a deposit requirement.
And what that meant is, that they agreed to put a copy of
every new book that was printed on the Oxford University library.
This was an agreement that was a signed with Thomas Bodley in 1610.
You may recognise that Thomas Bodley was the Oxford librarian at the time, and
the library of Oxford still carries his name, it's called the Bodleian library.
But this is the beginning, of this link between copyright, and
the deposit requirement that helps to build a national library.
And we still have that link in U.S. law.
In U.S. law,
every copyrighted work is supposed to be deposited in the library of Congress.
So, this is a very old idea that's been around and we still hang
onto in the U.S.
this charter that I told you about, that the Royal Company of Stationers had,
lapsed in 1695.
And there was a real question then of who is authorized to publish books.
The desire for strong control censorship, if you will,
had gotten less over the years, but the stationers still wanted their privilege.
And, all of a sudden other people were allowed to print books, and
the stationers were facing competition that they would rather not have.
So they began to lobby Parliament to renew, they asked for a permanent
renewal of this charter that would make them the sole publishers in England.
Parliament wasn't willing to do that.
And so their early efforts to get this charter for
the royal company of stationers didn't work.