8th June 2025
Millar vs Taylor, 1769
OCR’d WORD VERSION of the judgement
This judgement of 1769 (Millar v Taylor 4 Burr. 2303, 98 ER 201) by an English court provides evidence of a long history when books were treated as a kind of property.
Andrew Millar was a bookseller who in 1729, had purchased the publishing rights to James Thomson’s poem “The Seasons”. Robert Taylor published a copy of this book after the 21 year “copyright” had expired. The court ruled in favour of Millar and declared that “there is a perpetual common law copyright and that no works ever enter the public domain” (from Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millar_v_Taylor).
The evidence cited in the judgement goes back in time to the Star Chamber which forbade evasion of PERMANENT “copyright” (basically a “patent”).
James Madison was probably aware of this judgement which led him to argue that copyright was part of COMMON LAW, even as he advocated a limited term (on the lines that John Locke had recommended).