# Later copyright statutes industrialise rents on printed copies the 1450s shop made possible

Date: 1710

## The fact

On 10 April 1710 the Statute of Anne created a statutory copyright in England, a later industrial-policy instrument over printed copies. This Fact stores that distant rent-form, not a 1455 Gutenberg patent.

## Context

Cheaper books and copyright rents can both be true across centuries. Split 1470 price drop from 1710 rents. Neither is a Mainz privilege he signed.

[Johannes Gutenberg](/people/johannes-gutenberg) is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

## Evidence and sources

Folger and related rare-book legal history and Britannica independently treat 1710 as a print-market statute.

Official or archival record: Folger Shakespeare Library (https://www.folger.edu/; Folger Shakespeare Library).

## Significance

Copy-rent path. High confidence on 1710; Gutenberg’s authorship is none.

A statute is not a punch. Keep 1450s industry and 1710 rents unmerged.

## What is established and what is not

Established: 1710 statutory copyright in a print market. Not established: that Gutenberg wrote it, or that 1710 cancelled the 42-line Bible’s access value.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

## People

- Johannes Gutenberg: https://factrail.ai/people/johannes-gutenberg

## Drivers

- Industrial-Policy Activism: https://factrail.ai/drivers/industrial-policy-activism

## Sources

- https://www.folger.edu/
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Johannes-Gutenberg

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/gut-later-copyright-rents