Mansfield made another notable judgment in , in relation to copyright law. Andrew Millar was a bookseller who in 1729 had purchased the publishing rights to James Thomson's poem "The Seasons". After the term of the exclusive rights granted under the Statute of Anne expired, Robert Taylor began publishing his own competing publication, which contained Thomson's poem. Mansfield, sitting with three other judges, concluded that despite the Statute of Anne there was a perpetual common law copyright, and therefore that no works can ever be considered public domain.Heward (1979) p. 105 This was a massive victory for booksellers and publishers, as it meant that they could effectively make it impossible for new companies to compete, as in the absence of new texts, there was nothing they could print. Mansfield's judgment was finally overruled by the House of Lords in Donaldson v Beckett in 1774.
