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Plays during the
Elizabethan era were big business! Money!
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The more Plays a
Theatre produced the bigger the audience and the greater the
profit!
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Plays were
written and then performed as soon as possible - they were
not printed until after they were performed
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Shakespeare was
just paid a one-off fee for the play - there were no
Royalties!
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There were no
Copyright Laws to protect Shakespeare's work!
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The actors used
'foul papers' or prompts from the Playwrights own copy of
the play which were produced as a Quarto text (sometimes the
Playwright would pay a scribe to produce a better copy of
the play)
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So rivals from
other Theatre companies would copy the plays!
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Rival members
would attend plays to produce unauthorised copies of plays -
notes were made and copied as quickly as possible
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These would be
taken to the rival theatre and another version of the Play
would be produced!
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These
unauthorised and inferior text copies of William
Shakespeare's plays were produced as Quarto Texts
