In 1649 Parliament provided a penalty of 6_s._ 8_d._ and forfeiture for the reprinting of registered books, and prohibited presses except at London, Finsbury, York, and the universities, and in 1662 it added the requirement of deposit of a copy at the King's library and at each of the universities. To prevent fraudulent changes in a book after licensing, it was further required that a copy be deposited with the licenser at the time of application--apparently the origin of our record-deposit. With the expiration of these acts in 1679, legislative penalties lapsed and piracy became common. Charles II in 1684 renewed the charter of the Stationers' Company, approved its register, and confirmed to proprietors of books "the sole right, power, and privilege and authority of printing, as has been usual heretofore." The licensing act of 1649-62 was revived in 1685, and renewed up to 1694, although the booksellers now petitioned against it, and eleven peers protested against subjecting learning to a mercenary and perhaps ignorant licenser, and destroying the property of authors in their copies. The law lapsed because of the indignation of the Commons against the arbitrary power of the license, but the result was the abolition of statutory penalties, which left the punishment of piracy a matter of damages at common law, requiring a separate action for each copy sold, usually against irresponsible people. Piracy again flourished. The right at common law seems, however, to have been unquestioned, and the Court of Common Pleas held that a plaintiff who had purchased from the executors of an author was owner of the property at common law. Owners of literary property petitioned Parliament, 1703 to 1709, for security and redress, declaring that the property of English authors had always been held as sacred among the traders, that conveyance gave just and legal title, that the property was the same with houses and other estates, and that existing "copies" had cost at least L50,000, and had been used in marriage settlements and were the subsistence of many widows and orphans. This led to the famous statute of Anne, introduced in 1709, and passed March, 1710, "for the encouragement of learning," said to have been drawn in its original form by Swift, which remains the practical foundation of copyright in England and America to-day. III THE DEVELOPMENT OF STATUTORY COPYRIGHT IN ENGLAND {Sidenote: The statute of Anne as foundation}