Copyright is, probably, very Continental. In the late 15th century, before the arrival of the printing press to England, Venice had become the "capital of printing," and the Venetian Cabinet granted the first exclusive right to publish a particular book to Daniele Barbaro for a term of ten years. Christopher May (2002) The Venetian Moment: New Technologies, Legal Innovation and the Institutional Origins of Intellectual Property, Prometheus, 20:2, 172, DOI: 10.1080/08109020210138979. It was only later that England codified the concept of copyright.