International Copyright | Page 8

citizen of this, and
assuming and performing the duties thereof, can have the same
protection that an American author has."
We have already shown what an exceedingly unprotective and
unremunerative arrangement it is that is accorded to the American
author, and we have yet to find a single one, except perhaps Mr. Carey,
who is satisfied with it.
Why a European author, who has before him, under international
conventions, the markets of his native country and of all the world,
excepting belated America, should be expected to give up these for the
poor half-loaf of protection accorded to his American brother we can
hardly understand.

"IV. The trading of privileges to foreign authors for privileges to be
granted to Americans is not just, because the interests of others than
themselves are sacrificed thereby."
That strikes one as a remarkable sentence to come from Philadelphia.
Here are a number of American manufacturers who ask for a certain
very moderate amount of protection for their productions, and our
Philadelphia friends, filled with an unwonted zeal for the welfare of the
community at large, say, "No; this won't do. Prices would be higher,
and consumers would suffer."
It is evident that this want of practical sympathy with these literary
manufacturers is not due to any lack of interest in the enlightenment of
the community, for the last article says:
"V. Because the good of the whole people and the safety of our
republican institutions demand that books shall not be made too costly
for the multitude by giving the power to foreign authors to fix their
price here as well as abroad."
I think we may well doubt whether education as a whole, including the
important branch of ethics, is advanced by permitting our citizens to
appropriate, without compensation, the labor of others, while through
such appropriation they are also assisting to deprive our own authors of
a portion of their rightful earnings. But apart from that, the proposition,
as stated, proves too much. It is fatal to all copyright and to all
patent-right. If the good of the community and the safety of our
institutions demand that, in order to make books cheap, the claim to a
compensation for the authors must be denied, why should we continue
to pay copyrights to Longfellow and Whittier, or to the families of
Irving and Bryant? The so-called owners of these copyrights actually
have it in their power, in connection with their publishers, to "fix the
prices" of their books in this market. This monopoly must indeed be
pernicious and dangerous when it arouses Pennsylvania to come to the
rescue of oppressed and impoverished consumers against the exactions
of greedy producers, and to raise the cry of "free books for free men."
There is certainly something refreshing in this zeal for the rights of the

consumer, though we may doubt the equity of its application in this
particular instance; but we can nevertheless hardly be satisfied to have
an utterance like that of these resolutions quoted (as it is in the last
edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica) as "the latest American views
on the subject."
The history of the efforts made in this country to secure international
copyright is not a long one. The attempts have been few, and have been
lacking in organization and in unanimity of opinion, and they have for
the most part been made with but little apparent expectation of any
immediate success. Those interested seem to have always felt that
popular opinion was, on the whole, against them, and that progress
could be hoped for only through the slow process of building up by
education and discussion a more enlightened public sentiment.
In 1838, after the passing of the first International Copyright Act in
Great Britain, Lord Palmerston invited the American Government to
coöperate in establishing a copyright convention between the two
countries.
In the year previous, Henry Clay, as chairman of a committee on the
subject, had reported to the Senate very strongly in favor of such a
convention, taking the ground that the author's right of property in his
work was similar to that of the inventor in his patent.
This is a logical position for a protectionist, interested in the rights of
labor, to have taken, and the followers of Henry Clay, who are to-day
opposed to any measure of the kind, would do well to bear in mind this
opinion of their ablest leader.
No action was taken in regard to Mr. Clay's report or Lord Palmerston's
proposal.
In 1840 Mr. G. P. Putnam issued in pamphlet form "An Argument in
behalf of International Copyright," the first publication on the subject
in the United States of which I find record. In 1843 Mr. Putnam
obtained the signatures of ninety-seven publishers, printers, and binders
to a petition he had