Two thousand years of Chinese book history, marked by the steady growth of its market, raise a question: did that market ever produce a perception — or better, a consciousness — from which an idea of literary and artistic property could emerge? The paper looks at how artists, authors and publishers of ancient China regarded the reproduction and imitation of their works, and at whether they could make their voice heard by the authorities. It concludes that a form of literary property does appear to have been recognised, at least locally and in a scattered, embryonic form.