England did not have an official copyright law until 50 years after the KJV was published. Letters of Patent in England are not the same as your copyright laws in America.
The actual fact is that the KJV had what amounted to the copyright of that day. The copyright of that day existed more for the government and for the benefit of printers or publishers than for the authors or translators. There was no freedom of the press in that day in England.
John Tebbel wrote: “There had been a copyright of sorts in England from 1518” (
History of Book Publishing, p. 46).
James Paterson pointed out: “The Crown and the patentees of the Crown have sometimes set up rights more or less amounting to a perpetual copyright, and sometimes resembling a monopoly” (
Liberty of the Press, p. 282).
Robert Sargent, a KJV-only advocate, noted that Robert Barker paid 3,500 pounds for the copyright of the KJV and that Barker's firm held the rights to print the KJV until 1709 (
English Bible: Manuscript Evidence, p. 226).
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church also pointed out that Robert Barker bought the final manuscript of the KJV (now lost) for 3,500 pounds, "which included the copyright" (p. 135). W. H. T. Wrede noted that Cantrell Legge, printer at Cambridge, attempted to print the 1611 KJV in 1614, but Robert Baker “claimed the sole right of Bible printing under his Patent” and prevented him from printing it (
Short History, pp. 5-6).
Christopher Anderson quoted William Ball as writing in 1651 the following: “I conceive the sole printing of the Bible and Testament with power of restraint in others, to be of right the propriety of one Matthew Barker, citizen and stationer of London, in regard that his father paid for the amended or corrected Translation of the Bible 3500 [pounds]: by reason whereof the translated copy did of right belong to him and his assignees” (
Annals, II, p. 384).
Theodore Letis, a defender of the Textus Receptus, wrote: "This Bible [the KJV] had the
Cum Privilegio ("with privilege") printed on it which meant that the Crown of England, as the official head of the state church, held the copyright to this Bible, giving permission only to those printers which the Crown had chosen" (
Revival of the Ecclesiastical Text and the Claims of the Anabaptists, p. 29). This “
Cum pivilegio” is found on the title page for the New Testament in the 1611 edition, but it is found on the title page for the whole Bible in later KJV editions printed in 1613, 1614, 1615, 1617, 1618. 1619, etc.
KJV-only author David Cloud maintained that “the King James Bible was produced under the direct authority of the British Crown and is owned and ’copyrighted’ by the crown of England” (
Faith, p. 584).
