There are some interesting vestiges of the origin of copyright, still floating around in contemporary legal systems.
In the UK, and in other countries patterned after the UK constitution, works of the government are technically under royal prerogative. It's usually called "Crown copyright" but it isn't regulated by normal copyright law. Traditionally, the monarch reserved the right to ensure that laws were duplicated exactly, etc. It's the inherent right of the monarch, and that right has never actually been explicitly curtailed by law. For example, Canada's Copyright Act has a clause, asserting the Act does not curtail any rights or privileges of the Crown.
It's probably the purest form of "intellectual property" that exists. Anything the Crown creates is under Crown copyright. The copyright term is forever. There is no fair use or fair dealing with Crown copyrighted works. [1] The justification for the copyright is not derived from statute but, within the legal conceit we're working with here anyway, rather literally from God and traditional since time immemorial.
Speaking of which, The King James Bible is still under Crown copyright in the United Kingdom. James I paid for it and his heirs insist on their due. The Crown issued letters patent to several printers, those letters were acquired and now Cambridge University Press has the right to print the KJV Bible in England. It's one of the very few letters patent to somehow slip through the 19th and 20th century overhauls; nearly all have been abolished by acts of legislation.
Letters patent are the granting of an office or title or right or property by the state to an individual. The granting of such rights was historically, also another royal prerogative. Scope-limited monopolies were very common. A monopoly on farming salt on a particular beach. A monopoly on collecting taxes in a particular county. A monopoly on dying wool a certain colour in a particular town. Such letters were considered a form of property by the courts, and they could in some cases be traded.
This is, as I understand it, largely the intellectual/legal origin of modern copyright in the Anglo-American tradition. It was, at first, not focused on the work, the text, so much as the economic right of a printer, to have a monopoly on a specific work, and to not have that right infringed with unseemly competition. As more and more letters patent regarding printing were issued, it eventually became formalized and then regulated by statute, taking it out of the Crown's arbitrary hands. At the same time (I think we're at about 1750 AD now?) the proliferation of printing started reducing the economic significance of the book itself vs. the contents of the book, and we started to think more about the author than the printer.
[1] Of course, practically speaking, in modern times, the Crown has issued various directives over the years, culminating in a whole department to manage Crown copyrighted works, and it's policy that verbatim duplication and etc. of laws are just fine. But very technically, that privilege could be rescinded at any time by royal decree, though of course that won't actually happen.
In the UK, and in other countries patterned after the UK constitution, works of the government are technically under royal prerogative. It's usually called "Crown copyright" but it isn't regulated by normal copyright law. Traditionally, the monarch reserved the right to ensure that laws were duplicated exactly, etc. It's the inherent right of the monarch, and that right has never actually been explicitly curtailed by law. For example, Canada's Copyright Act has a clause, asserting the Act does not curtail any rights or privileges of the Crown.
It's probably the purest form of "intellectual property" that exists. Anything the Crown creates is under Crown copyright. The copyright term is forever. There is no fair use or fair dealing with Crown copyrighted works. [1] The justification for the copyright is not derived from statute but, within the legal conceit we're working with here anyway, rather literally from God and traditional since time immemorial.
Speaking of which, The King James Bible is still under Crown copyright in the United Kingdom. James I paid for it and his heirs insist on their due. The Crown issued letters patent to several printers, those letters were acquired and now Cambridge University Press has the right to print the KJV Bible in England. It's one of the very few letters patent to somehow slip through the 19th and 20th century overhauls; nearly all have been abolished by acts of legislation.
Letters patent are the granting of an office or title or right or property by the state to an individual. The granting of such rights was historically, also another royal prerogative. Scope-limited monopolies were very common. A monopoly on farming salt on a particular beach. A monopoly on collecting taxes in a particular county. A monopoly on dying wool a certain colour in a particular town. Such letters were considered a form of property by the courts, and they could in some cases be traded.
This is, as I understand it, largely the intellectual/legal origin of modern copyright in the Anglo-American tradition. It was, at first, not focused on the work, the text, so much as the economic right of a printer, to have a monopoly on a specific work, and to not have that right infringed with unseemly competition. As more and more letters patent regarding printing were issued, it eventually became formalized and then regulated by statute, taking it out of the Crown's arbitrary hands. At the same time (I think we're at about 1750 AD now?) the proliferation of printing started reducing the economic significance of the book itself vs. the contents of the book, and we started to think more about the author than the printer.
[1] Of course, practically speaking, in modern times, the Crown has issued various directives over the years, culminating in a whole department to manage Crown copyrighted works, and it's policy that verbatim duplication and etc. of laws are just fine. But very technically, that privilege could be rescinded at any time by royal decree, though of course that won't actually happen.