Past historic 3: Copyright infringement and the tale of St Columba

The third item in the little bundle of photocopied articles on IP history which this Kat researched and wrote back in the 1980s, when he was still a full-time academic, was put together while he was a Lecturer in Law at Trinity College Dublin.  There he had the thoroughly enjoyable experience of calling on the resources of a wonderful library and of spending many hours in the college's celebrated Long Room, home to the Book of Kells.

The subject of this essay is the story of Columba -- saint, scholar and alleged copyright infringer -- and the ruling against him: "To every cow its calf and to every book its copy". Readers of this weblog will recall that its author had cause to return to the story in the course of some Irish copyright blogging towards the end of last year: you can access the follow-up by clicking "Wednesday Whimsies, or a Tale of Three Lams ..." here and scrolling down till you find "More on St Columba Again".

You can read "St Columba the Copyright Infringer" in full here. It was originally published at [1985] 12 EIPR 350-353.

Earlier history posts in the same series
For "Past historic 1: how patents for invention came from Venice to England", click here
For "Past historic 2: Prince Albert and the Etchings", click here