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An obsolete meaning of the word annotation is marking out an era using chronological notation (OED).  This is the intention of this work, i.e., to chronologically mark out the pre-Common Law era of copyright and performing rights.  It was an era different yet similar to our post-Common Law world.  Questions of content and censorship, technological and cultural change, access to information and monopoly are some of the temporal threads stitching the two together. 

Marking out this era is done using 367 annotated chronological entries.  In turn these are indexed reporting 212 copyright and 174 performing rights related entries.  Other than descriptive entries, all cite official legal documents including: 71 Statutes of the Realm; 130 Royal Proclamations, Decrees, Declarations, etc.; 18 Ecclesiastic instruments; 27 Acts, Orders, Ordinances, etc. without Royal Assent; 5 Injunctions; and 51 Royal Charters & Patents.  Entries have been developed from 94 referenced primary and secondary sources.  A 78 entry Glossary of the Times is also provided describing and defining key institutions and concepts such as the Crown, Guilds, Letters Patent, Minstrels & Waits, Parliament, Parish Clerks & Conducts, Peer, Privilege, Royal Prerogative, Vagabonds, Rogues & Sturdy Beggars, etc.

Three Annexes are included.  Annex A provides complete marginalia for 30 selected Statutes of the Realm.  Annex B provides the complete text of the 1662 Licensing Act [considered by Patterson (2003/3) a source for sections of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the United States] and the 1709/10 Statute of Queen Anne, generally considered the first modern copyright act.  Annex C lists English monarchs and their reign from 1066 to 2011

The Introduction provides three things. First, it establishes the disciplinarian roots from which the work was grown.  Second, it traces the evolution of copyright, performing rights (music, opera & theatre) and their licensing using the Chronology and Glossary of the Times.  Finally, it provides an assessment of the post-Common Law era which through precedent and path dependency descends from and retains many of the characteristics of the previous era.  See Table of Contents.

 

179 pages, 1 MB, ISBN pending

Dr. Harry Hillman Chartrand, PhD

215 Lake Crescent

Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

S7H 3A1

Tele/Fax: (306) 244-6945

h.h.chartrand@compilerpress.ca