Palmer Argues Inquisition Invented Copyright Law to Enable Book Censorship

What was said

"The very first version of copyright is the Inquisition. And places outside the Catholic world then, like England, look at this, and there's actually popular demand in England for censorship, when they say, Hey, we need what the Inquisition does 'cause Inquisition is so cool. They let printers have a monopoly on printing a book and they let authors deny print permission."

Palmer traces modern copyright law directly to the Catholic Inquisition's post-1515 requirement that all books receive pre-publication approval. In exchange for submitting to censorship, printers received monopoly licenses enforceable through Inquisition authority. England and other nations then copied this system, originally seeking to replicate the censorship mechanism but eventually separating copyright from prior restraint.