Any work published after the author's death would remain the copyright of the owner of the manuscript for the same forty-two year period.

This ensured that authors would have the opportunity to be compensated for the fact that rights they had sold some years previously, possibly for a fixed sum, had become substantially more valuable.

Copyright in encyclopaedias, magazines, periodicals, and series works was to be vested in the proprietors as though they were themselves the authors, saving that essays, articles, etc.

first published as part of a collected periodical work, the republication right was to revert to the original author after twenty-eight years and continue for the remainder of the term.

One copy of any book printed after the Act came into force[d] was to be submitted within one month of publication to the British Museum, at the expense of the publisher.

Entry in the register was a necessary precondition to suing under the Act, but an omission did not affect the legal title, simply the ability to sue.

Any illegal copies of work were forfeit, to become the property of the proprietor of the copyright, and could be recovered from their publisher by legal action.

Contrariwise your petitioner believes firmly that he is innocent in said labor; that if he be found in the long run to have written a genuine enduring book, his merit therein, and desert towards England and English and other men, will be considerable, not easily estimable in money; that on the other hand, if his book prove false and ephemeral, he and it will be abolished and forgotten, and no harm done.