the "Battle of the Booksellers". They first tried going to the Court of Chancery and applying for injunctions prohibiting other publishers from printing their works, and this was initially successful. A series of legal setbacks over the next few years, however, left the law ambiguous. The first major action taken to clarify the situation was Millar v Taylor. Andrew Millar, a British publisher, purchased the rights to James Thomson's The Seasons in 1729, and when the copyright term expired, a competing publisher named Robert Taylor began issuing his own reprints of the work. Millar sued, and went to the Court of King's Bench to obtain an injunction and advocate perpetual copyright at common law. The jury found that the facts submitted by Millar were accurate, and asked the judges to clarify whether common law copyright existed. The first arguments were delivered on 30 June 1767, with John Dunning representing Millar and Edward Thurlow representing Taylor. A second set of arguments were submitted for Millar by William Blackstone on 7 June, and judgment was given on 20 April 1769. The final decision, written by Lord Mansfield and endorsed by Aston and Willes JJ, confirmed that there existed copyright at common law that turned "upon Principles before and independent" of the Statute of Anne, something justified because it was right "that an Author should reap the pecuniary Profits of his own Ingenuity and Labour". In other words, regardless of the Statute, there existed a perpetual copyright under the common law. Yates J dissented, on the grounds that the focus on the author obscured the effect this decision would have on "the rest of mankind", which he felt would be to create a virtual monopoly, something that would harm the public and should certainly not be considered "an encouragement of the propagation of learning". Although this decision was a boon to the Stationers, it was short-lived. Following Millar, the right to print The Seasons was sold to a coalition of publishers including Thomas Becket. Two Scottish printers, Alexander and John Donaldson, began publishing an unlicensed edition, and Becket successfully obtained an injunction to stop them. This decision was appealed in Donaldson v Beckett, and eventually went to the House of Lords. After consulting with the judges of the King's Bench, Common Pleas and Exchequer of Pleas, the Lords concluded that copyright was not perpetual, and that the term permitted by the Statute of