Recently, the Beth Din of America, one of the most highly regarded rabbinic civil courts in the U.S., issued a formal ruling, or psak, in the case of a corporation that published a slide deck without asking permission from, or crediting, its author. The Beth Din ruled against the publishers, relying primarily on the halakhic principle of dina d’malkhuta dina, or “the law of the land is the law.” The occasion prompted Rabbi Shlomo Weissman to author this brief historical overview of the halakhic approach to copyright law, rooted primarily in the principle of hasagat gvul (literally, “moving back a boundary”), which governs all manner of encroachments on the rights of another:

The printing press was invented in 1440, making it possible to offer books to a mass market and sell them. In the early days of printing, there was nothing to stop a publisher from using another person’s work without permission and to make money from it. The need for legal protections around intellectual property became apparent almost immediately.

In the non-Jewish world, intellectual property protections historically took the form of royal privileges. These privileges, granted by the king, were often printed at the front of a book and explicitly prohibited the unauthorized reproduction of the work for a specified period.

How were seforim, [sacred texts], protected? They were often granted haskamot, [letters of approval], the forerunner of rabbinic approbations that appear at the beginning of modern day seforim. Haskamot were issued by [rabbinical courts] and in many ways they functioned similarly to the royal privileges of the time, prohibiting reproduction of the work for a set period of time.

Halakhah conceived of a generally applicable legal framework for prohibiting the unauthorized reproduction of another person’s work from the time of the very earliest haskamot, dating to the early 1500s. In contrast, no standardized intellectual-property law for protecting authors’ rights existed in Europe until the enactment of the [British] Statute of Anne in 1710.

For more than a year, the Iran-backed Houthis have been launching drones and missiles at ships traversing the Red Sea, as well as at Israeli territory, in support of Hamas. This development has drastically curtailed shipping through the Suez Canal and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, driving up trade prices. This week, the Trump administration began an extensive bombing campaign against the Houthis in an effort to reopen that crucial waterway. Burcu Ozcelik highlights another benefit of this action:

The administration has a broader geopolitical agenda—one that includes countering China’s economic leverage, particularly Beijing’s reliance on Iranian oil. By targeting the Houthis, the United States is not only safeguarding vital shipping lanes but also exerting pressure on the Iran-China energy nexus, a key component of Beijing’s strategic posture in the region.

China was the primary destination for up to 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports in 2024, underscoring the deepening economic ties between Beijing and Tehran despite U.S. sanctions. By helping fill Iranian coffers, China aids Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in financing proxies like the Houthis. Since October of last year, notable U.S. Treasury announcements have revealed covert links between China and the Houthis.

Striking the Houthis could trigger broader repercussions—not least by disrupting the flow of Iranian oil to China. While difficult to confirm, it is conceivable and has been reported, that the Houthis may have received financial or other forms of compensation from China (such as Chinese-made military components) in exchange for allowing freedom of passage for China-affiliated vessels in the Red Sea.