I looked into the history a bit. One reason we see royalty getting in on it was because the Kings were the authorities. What was happening in the early days of printing was people would go to great expense to publish a book only to have copycats produce the same thing and pirate it for cheaper. It reached a point where investors were no longer interested. So, really, the original European copyrights were to protect the businessmen and assure a supply of books. The King used his authority for the benefit of the nation.

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