By the eighteenth century the condition had become practically intolerable. There was a great mass of laws on the statute books. Legislation was confused and contradictory and of the most drastic sort. The enforcement was sporadic and irregular, depending upon a great many personal and local considerations. There was no underlying principle to control either the making or enforcement of the laws. All this, like so much else that belonged to the life of the old days, was swept away by the French Revolution. All the laws regarding privilege, censorship, and the like were annulled in a mass. The press was given absolute freedom and left without any control whatever. Of course, it abused this freedom and the condition of things for a while was extremely bad. It finally readjusted itself, however, and gradually settled down into the condition which is familiar today. CHAPTER IV DEVELOPMENT OF THE IDEA OF COPYRIGHT As we have already seen, the early printers concerned themselves almost exclusively with the reprinting of church books and the classics. These last required for successful performance expert editorial work and proof reading. The printers engaged competent and sometimes very distinguished scholars to do this work for them and paid them for their labor. Out of this practice grew the idea that the author might properly share in the profits of the original work done by him. If he were paid for preparing a good text of Virgil, for instance, why could he not be paid for writing a critical article to be prefixed to the volume, and why not if he wrote a whole book about Virgil which the publisher desired to present to the world of scholars? At first there was some objection on the part of the writers themselves. It was held by many that it was undignified and improper for a writer to sell his ideas. Such opinions soon ceased to be common. The race of professional authors living by their pens came into existence. The same questions which arose with regard to the printer’s right to his work extended to the question of the author’s right. Even before the author’s pecuniary right in his work was clearly recognized the claim was asserted that he ought to have control of it. Luther, for example, strongly asserted this right of control and strenuously objected to piracy on the ground of his desire to safeguard the correctness of texts purporting to be written by him. He does not appear to have cared for the money, as he himself corrected the texts of pirated editions of his works. He feared, however, that harm might come through typographical errors or even the deliberate falsification of his writing. This has always been a real danger, and one of the greatest complaints made by European authors against American printers previous to the days of international copyright was on the ground of the incorrectness of the pirated editions.