International Copyright | Page 2

this is the position of the author of to-day.
Copyright is defined by Drone in his "Law of Copyright," as "the exclusive right of the owner to multiply and to dispose of copies of an intellectual production." It is also used as a synonym for literary property. Regarding literary property, Drone says:
"There can be no property in a production of the mind unless it is expressed in a definite form of words. But the property is not in the words alone; it is in the intellectual creation, which language is merely a means of expressing and communicating."
Copyright may therefore be said to be the legal recognition of brain-work as property.
It is akin in its nature to patent-right, which is also but the legal recognition of the existence of property in an idea, or a group of ideas, or the form of expression of an idea.
International patent-rights have been recognized and carried into effect much more generally than have copyrights. The patentee of an improved toothpick would be able to secure to-day a wider recognition of his right as a creator than is accorded to the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" or of "Adam Bede."
"The existence of literary property," says Drone, "is traced back by record to 1558, when an entry of copies appears in the register of the Company of Stationers of London." Between 1558 and 1710 there was no legislation creating this property or confining ownership, nor any abridging its perpetuity or restricting its enjoyment. It was understood, therefore, to owe its existence to common law, and this conclusion, arrived at by the weightiest authorities, remained practically unquestioned until 1774. During this earlier period there were some instances of the recognition of literary property, but the earliest reported case concerning such property occurred in 1666, in which the House of Lords unanimously agreed that "a copyright was a thing acknowledged at common law." A licensing act, passed in Parliament in 1674, and expiring in 1679, prohibited, under pain of forfeiture, the printing of any work without the consent of the owner. But the first act attempting to fully define and protect copyright in Great Britain was that of 1710, known as the 8th of Anne. It was entitled "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning," and, declaring that an author should have the sole right of publishing his book, prescribed penalties against any who should infringe that right. Its evident intention was to more clearly establish, and make more easily defensible, the rights of authors, but curiously enough it had for its effect a very material limitation of those rights.
It provided, namely, that copyright should be secured to the author or his assigns for fourteen years, with a privilege of renewal to the author or his representatives for fourteen years longer. This privilege of renewal was not conveyed to any one who might have purchased the author's copyright. It was supposed for a long time that this statute had not interfered with any rights that authors might possess at common law, and in the oft-cited case of Millar vs. Taylor in 1769, in regard to a reprint of Thomson's "Seasons," a majority of the judges of the King's Bench (including among them Lord Mansfield) gave it as their opinion that the act was not intended to destroy, and had not destroyed, copyright at common law, but had simply protected it more efficiently during the periods specified. The opinion delivered by Lord Mansfield, as chief justice of the court, remains one of the strongest and most conclusive statements of the property-rights of authors, and has been termed one of the grandest judgments in English judicial literature. Its conclusion is as follows:
"Upon the whole, I conclude that upon every principle of reason, natural justice, morality, and common law; upon the evidence of the long received opinion of this property appearing in ancient proceedings and in law cases; upon the clear sense of the legislature, and the opinions of the greatest lawyers of their time since that statute--the right (that is in perpetuity) of an author to the copy of his work appears to be well founded, ... and I hope the learned and industrious will be permitted from henceforth not only to reap the same, but the full profits of their ingenious labors, without interruptions, to the honor and advantage of themselves and their families."
In 1774, in the case of Donaldson vs. Beckett, the House of Lords decided on an appeal, first, that authors had possessed at common law the right of copyright in perpetuity, but, secondly, that this right at common law had been taken away by the statute of Anne, and a term of years substituted for perpetuity.
Chief among those who, in opposition to this decision, advised the lords that literary property was not less inviolable than any species of