 After the printing became common, publishers took the position that having purchased a work from an author, the right to control its publication continued permanently.Courts supported the claim via precedent, until the Statute was passed early in the 18th century, after which it was law that literary works went into the public domain after a fixed time set by statute.This system seems to have been mostly used in the financing of major projects -- for example, multi-volume works such as encyclopedias.