One of the first persons to enjoy anything like copyright protection in Germany was Albrecht Dürer. The city government of Nuremberg undertook to protect Dürer and his family in the right to print and publish his works. It is a curious mark of the undeveloped state of public opinion regarding these matters at this time that Dürer seems to have been protected more as an inventor than as an author. The early German copyrights in many cases seem not only to have prevented others from reprinting a specified book but also from printing any book on the same subject. For example, Dürer wrote a book on _Proportion_ which was published in Paris. Before it was completed another artist named Beham undertook to publish a book on _Proportion_. Beham was ordered not to publish his book until after Dürer had completed publication. He insisted that his work was an absolutely independent one, not in any way copied from or related to the work of Dürer, but his plea was disregarded, although, as it afterward turned out, it was quite true that his work was entirely independent. Throughout Europe during the period we have under consideration we find two ideas gradually clearing themselves from the confused thinking of the time and coming into recognition. The first is the idea that the writer of a book has for a time at least property rights in it, and the other that old books belong to the public. That is the basis of our modern thinking on the subject. We recognize that any writer may copyright his work and is entitled to the control of it during the copyright period, which varies in different countries. When his copyright has expired any publisher who cares to undertake the venture as a business proposition may bring out an edition and sell it at whatever price he chooses. That is the reason why old books are generally cheaper than new books. An edition of Scott or Dickens is purely a manufacturing proposition. An edition of Maurice Hewlett is a very different matter because Mr. Hewlett, or his publisher, holds copyright on his works and must be paid for the privilege of publishing. Another important development in thought was the growth of the idea of right as distinguished from privilege. A privilege, as the word implies, is an act of grace. It is a grant of permission to do a thing which one has no inherent right to do. In England, as we shall later see, when the idea of copyright came to be seriously considered it was based on the common law, that is to say, it was recognized that the printer and author had some rights in the matter. As soon as it was seen that the printer and the author had produced something more than a mere piece of merchandise and that the property right of the producer inhered in that added element quite as much as in the piece of merchandise the basis was laid for the common law treatment of the whole matter. The extension of the conception of property to cover thoughts as well as things was the basis of the whole matter.