The Only Question Can Be As To The Expediency And The
Justice.
At present there is no international copyright between
England and the United States, and there is none because the States
have declined to sanction any such law.
It is known by all who are
concerned in the matter on either side of the water that as far as
Great Britain is concerned such a law would meet with no impediment.
Therefore it is to be presumed that the legislators of the States
think it expedient and just to dispense with any such law. I have
said that there can be no doubt as to the importance of the
question, seeing that the price of English literature in the States
must be most materially affected by it. Without such law the
Americans are enabled to import English literature without paying
for it. It is open to any American publisher to reprint any work
from an English copy, and to sell his reprints without any
permission obtained from the English author or from the English
publisher. The absolute material which the American publisher
sells, he takes, or can take, for nothing. The paper, ink, and
composition he supplies in the ordinary way of business; but the
very matter which he professes to sell - of the book which is the
object of his trade - he is enabled to possess himself of for
nothing. If you, my reader, be a popular author, an American
publisher will take the choicest work of your brain, and make
dollars out of it, selling thousands of copies of it in his country,
whereas you can perhaps only sell hundreds of it in your own; and
will either give you nothing for that he takes, or else will explain
to you that he need give you nothing, and that in paying you he
subjects himself to the danger of seeing the property which he has
bought taken again from him by other persons. If this be so, that
question whether or no there shall be a law of international
copyright between the two countries cannot be unimportant.
But it may be inexpedient that there shall be such a law. It may be
considered well that, as the influx of English books into America is
much greater than the influx of American books back to England, the
right of obtaining such books for nothing should be reserved,
although the country in doing so robs its own authors of the
advantage which should accrue to them from the English market. It
might perhaps be thought anything but smart to surrender such an
advantage by the passing of an international copyright bill. There
are not many trades in which the tradesman can get the chief of his
goods for nothing; and it may be thought that the advantage arising
to the States from such an arrangement of circumstances should not
be abandoned. But how then about the justice? It would seem that
the less said upon that subject the better.
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