What is the history of authorship of invention of intellectual property?Joseph Loewenstein describes the fragmentary and eruptive emergence of a keyphase of the... » 

What is the history of authorship of invention of intellectual property?Joseph Loewenstein describes the fragmentary and eruptive emergence of a keyphase of the bibliographical ego a specifically Early Modern form of authorialidentification with printed writing. In the work of many playwrights and nondramatic writers and especially that of Ben Jonson that identification istinged remarkably with possessiveness. This book examines the emergence ofpossessive authorship within a complex industrial and cultural field. It tracesthe prehistory of modern copyright both within the monopolistic practices ofLondons acting troupes and its Stationers Company and within a Renaissancecultural heritage. Under the pressures of modern competition a tradition ofliterary artistic and technological imitation began to fissure unleashingjealous accusations of plagiarism and ingenious new fantasies of intellectualprivacy. Perhaps no one was more creatively attuned to this momentoustransformation in Early Modern intellectual life than Ben Jonson. «