The Minutes of the College were not open to the inspection of the public, and it appears that no subject indexes were kept of the business transacted, while, as before said, no attempts were made to preserve any list or register of the privileges issued. The printers and publishers had, therefore, no safe means of ascertaining whether or not they were infringing a previous copyright. The average term of the earlier privileges was ten years. In the latter half of the sixteenth century, however, it became the practice to grant longer terms. There are examples, in 1569, of privileges of twenty years, and, in 1596, of twenty-four and twenty-five years. The terms varied, however, very greatly, and it is difficult to trace the grounds upon which a longer or a shorter time was decided upon. We find instances of one year, five years, ten years, fifteen years, etc. The copyrights run sometimes from the date of the application and sometimes from that of the publication. After 1505, the practice obtained of granting prolongations of privileges in cases in which good cause had been shown for such prolongation. An instance of such an extension is the case of Leonardo Crasso’s edition of the works of Polifilo, for which, in 1508, a second copyright term of ten years was granted on the ground that the wars had prevented the publisher from getting back his investment. The principal difficulty with these earlier privileges was the absence of any machinery to secure their enforcement or the protection of the owners of the copyrights. Brown says that there is no instance or record of a suit being brought by one printer against another for infringement of copyright. Complaints for infringement were presented from time to time to the College or to the Council of Ten. In 1499, the Council of Ten issued an order to publishers to respect the copyrights granted to Antonio Moretto of Brescia. In 1495, Biondo and Giambattista secured for ten years a privilege in the Letters of S. Catherine of Siena. The same work was, however, published by Aldus in 1500, five years before Biondo’s privilege had expired. The _Letters of Phalaris_ were published in 1498 by Braccio, and in 1499 by Aldus, and there appears to have been no determination of the question to whom the privilege or copyright belonged. The whole business of copyrights resting upon individual privileges fell into confusion, and the difficulties in the way of protecting literary property must have seriously interfered with the development of publishing undertakings.