Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers
The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers (Eng. " Honorable Society of papermaking and newspaper publisher " ), better known under the short form Stationers ' Company, is a Livery Company in the City of London. The Guild was founded in 1403 received its Royal Charter on May 4 to 1557 and controlled in parts of the 16th and 17th century publishing in England. While the Stationers ' Company in the Group of Livery Companies always played only a minor role and never won extensive influence on the fortunes of the London trade, it played an important role in the development of press censorship and copyright.
History
Foundation
The Guild was founded in 1403, when the Corporation of London agreed to a petition submitted by Parcheminiers, writers, illustrators and bookbinders establishing a guild. The Stationers ' Company in 1542 asked the King and Queen at a Royal Charter and these came the call after 1557.
Royal Charter
In the preamble to the Royal Charter as Queen Mary 's reasons for the establishment of the wish that the Stationers ' Company might be a suitable antidote to the daily printed seditious and heretical writings. The royal charter limited the publishing of books to members of the Stationers ' Company and awarded Master and Wardens of the Company the right to enter into foreign workshops to confiscate illegally printed works and imprison their producers without trial. While the rights of the guilds were mostly limited geographically, were the Stationers for the whole of England and the dominion of the queen. The Royal Charter of the Stationers was there only one of many means as applied Mary at that time to control an increasingly free and critical press. Already in the year she left an extensive censorship law in the British House of Lords say goodbye. Even after the Catholic Mary had been replaced by the Protestant Elizabeth, this renewed in November 1559 extensive charter, for the same reasons as already Mary.
Activities
The activities of the Stationers ' Company were significant mainly in two aspects: Firstly, they put a stop temporarily successful any competition and thus each publication activities of non- members. Second, it led to the English stock an extensive directory published writings. From the floor, they generate reeds regularly published almanacs, which were an important source of income for company. Within the Livery Companies were the Stationers ' never play a significant role. In the traditional ranking, she took an average place, while their membership was small with compared to goldsmiths, food or cloth merchant comparatively small amounts of money.
Significantly, however, the Company was for the English government, which the Stationers granted monopoly rights that went beyond the rights of all other guilds. While each of the Livery Companies tried to control their trade, it made the far-reaching powers granted to the royal house of the Stationers, particularly simple. In its role as guardian of the competition of the Stationers ' Company grew more diverse hatred, as it was perceived as a major obstacle for the development of a free press. In its protest font Areopagitica against the censorship law of the Licensing Order of 1643 John Milton used explicitly against two major culprit: the ambition of some Presbyterian minister and " the fraud of some old monopolists in the book trade."
The influence of the Company began to wane in the 17th century. After the government no longer needed the Stationers ' Company to control the book trade dwindled their role in book production. End of the 17th century there were a similar number of publishers within the Company and outside. A special historical role played by the Stationers ' Company in the invention of copyright. Though the Guild had in fact already lost control, she fought longer than other Livery Companies to their influence and gave this fight until 1856, when the City of London picked up all guild restrictions.
Copyright
The Stationers had since the mid-16th century a copyright, the new copies of existing books controlled. The first formal copyright law in the world, the Statute of Anne was based on this rules, and was mainly possible through lobbying work of the Stationers. While the system of Stationers but was a pure monopoly, which was aimed at the protection of the publisher, the Parliament and the courts more responsive to the authors; not dissolve without the internal systematics of the copyright, and to make a single legal area an interconnected baying of legal fragments.
The right of the Stationers ' proceeded from the English law, which essentially remained the same 1559-1694. The actual printing of books depended on a permission of the English crown, and the publication of the trade, however, hung on a permission of the Stationers ' Company, the right to copy the copyright. The Company laid down, among other conditions and prices, and in 1612 put the Court of Assistants found that when the pressure floor of a book was sold to a guild member, this book can not be resold without permission of the buyer. Died the owner of a copyright, so the work was not allowed to be printed before the Stationers ' Company had been awarded a new copyright for this book. This new licenses were awarded only if all copies of the old print were sold, at an indefinite time licenses they fell to the widow, provided that the non- married a man who was not a member of the Stationers.
Historic Inner structure
Like the other Livery Companies also, the Stationers ' Company had an annually elected Master and Warden. Together with the Court of Assistants, they determined the fate of the guild. Master and Warden had the right to enter any building to search for illegally printed books, and to destroy them. The Court, in the Master and Warden were voting members had given extensive rights over the members who are in disputes also had to turn first to the Court of Assistants before they could take the regular jurisdiction to complete. The Court could, for example, impose corporal punishment against journeymen and apprentices, striking employees lock up and Masters who violated the regulations, sentenced to fines. Below the Courts were Senior and Junior Wardens renter, the einsammelten quarterly membership fees, and the Clerk, administered the official documents.
Within the membership there were three groups of members, bookbinder, bookseller and printer. The printer took the time of the Royal Charter of the most important positions within the guild, and were often still the way it operates to move the printed books they and sell. The guild evolved with the book trade, and as the bookseller / publisher gained control of the book trade, they dominated after a few decades, the Stationers ' Company.
Today
The Stationers 'Company continues to exist as an industry association that in the Stationers ' social events, workshops and lectures organized Hall. The guild has 800 members, both individuals and companies that are primarily from the United Kingdom. Stationers ' Hall in the City of London can be used as an event space. By 1983, the Company in the operation of a private school, the Stationers ' Company 's School was involved.
The Entry Books of the Stationers ' Company served 1710-1923 as an official copyright Directory of Great Britain. While the Company itself occasionally carelessly dealt with their materials, they remained spared major damage, so that the archives of the Company is today of great value to the book history and social history. In 1950, she published the first full edition of the Entry Books microfilm, which in 1986 was greatly improved.