It is believed that the first law that referred to copyright - those rights that depending on which side you are on are seen in one way or another - was the Queen Anne Statute of Great Britain promulgated on April 10, 1710. Its original title:
An act for the encouragement of learning, by vesting the copies of printed books in the authors or purchasers of such copies, during the times there in mentioned. (A law for the stimulation of learning, for the granting of rights to printed copies of books by authors or purchasers of such copies, during the time mentioned therein).
In addition to protecting the rights of authors, since on many occasions publishers reprinted books without the author's consent and did not obtain any benefit, it also tried to encourage reading and facilitate access to culture by temporarily limiting these rights. The law established that all works would have a term of protection of 14 years that could be extended to 28 if the author was still alive. Works that had been printed before the law was published, regardless of whether the author was alive or dead, had a single term of 21 years.
But since here we always try to pull the thread until we see where we end up, we have found a law from the 8th century BC. in Sybaris (south of present-day Italy, at that time a colony of Magna Graecia ) in which the rights of authors were already protected. Abundance, refinement (they are even credited with the invention of the urinal and bathtub), tranquility (inside the city, roosters and trades such as blacksmithing were not allowed), luxury and comfort were the hallmarks of the sybarites -hence that this term has remained to designate people who love exquisite pleasures. The chefs of this city were also famous for preparing original and sophisticated recipes that would leave the best gourmet speechless. To protect the art of the chefs of Síbaris, a law was enacted that gave them exclusive exploitation of their new dishes for one year . Unfortunately, when in 510 B.C. the armies of the city of Crotona defeated those of Sybaris, razing the city and all the recipes were lost.
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Source:The inventions of the ancients.