Verb
To print together.
To reprint without permission a work belonging to another.
Usage- UK usage
- Obsolete
- Examples
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More examples (4)
After the wars, the University Printers did, for some time, continue to comprint privileged books at Oxford, as well as those at London, but soon after came to their former agreement, but for lower payments.
Aug. 24 [1671, letter of] Dr. Thomas Yates to Sir Leoline Jenkyns. [...] My endeavour is to place our power of printing here on the same foot that the late King's great charter doth; that is, upon our prescription and usage, which if we can, then we have a right before all patents of restraint and reservation of the sole printing of some books, and then we shall not be restrained by the patents granted to the King's printers, the Stationers, and others, but shall be at liberty to comprint with them all their books, which is all we shall desire, for we are resolved to print better and with more care than those that now print, and to sell cheaper, which is the proper and best use we can make of such a privilege.
Proclaiming himself the trade's equivalent to Luther, he [Elizabethan printer John Wolfe] and a band of colleagues began systematically to comprint patented books.
And in 1685, the Bishop of Oxford, John Fell, similarly noted that authors granted copyrights to booksellers. Writing to John Bellinger, one of the Wardens of the Company, the Bishop stated that the University of Oxford would not 'comprint the Books that the Company have in their Patents, or belong by way of Coppyright from the Authors of Books'.