Z:gnu-www-ja-copyright-and-globalization--7a141d-Now copyright was developed al/en

Now copyright was developed along with the use of the printing press and given the technology of the printing press, it had the effect of an industrial regulation. It didn't restrict what readers could do; it restricted what publishers and authors could do. Copyright in England was initially a form of censorship. You had to get government permission to publish the book. But the idea has changed. By the time of the U.S. Constitution, people came to a different idea of the purpose of copyright, and I think that that idea was accepted in England as well.