Maharam of Padua v. Giustiniani: The Sixteenth-Century Origins of the Jewish Law of Copyright

Abstract:     
Copyright scholars are almost universally unaware of Jewish copyright law, a rich body of copyright doctrine and jurisprudence that developed in parallel with Anglo-American and Continental European copyright laws and printers' privileges. Jewish copyright law traces its origins to a dispute adjudicated some 150 years before modern copyright law is typically said to have emerged with the Statute of Anne of 1709. This Article examines that dispute, the case of Maharam of Padua v. Giustiniani. Remarkably, the ruling in that dispute reaches some of the same fundamental issues that animate copyright jurisprudence today: Is copyright a property right or a limited regulatory prerogative? What is copyright's rationale? What is its scope? Which law should be applied to a copyright dispute in which the litigants reside under different legal regimes? How can copyright be enforced against an infringer who is beyond the applicable legal authority's reach?

I begin with the factual and historical background to the dispute. I then analyze the rabbinic judge's reasoning and decision. I close with a brief description of the dispute's tragic postscript.

Keywords: copyright, jewish law, halacha, legal history, unfair competition

JEL Classifications: B11

Accepted Paper Series