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LETTERS
ON
INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT:
BY
H. C. CAREY,
AUTHOR OF "PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL SCIENCE," ETC. ETC.
SECOND EDITION.
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY HURD AND HOUGHTON,
459 BROOME STREET.
1868.
RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:
PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.
PREFACE.
At the date, now fourteen years since, of the first publication of theseletters, the important case of authors versus readers—makers of booksversus consumers of facts and ideas—had for several years been againon trial in the high court of the people. But few years previously thesame plaintiffs had obtained a verdict giving large extension of time tothe monopoly privileges they had so long enjoyed. Not content therewith,they now claimed greater space, desiring to have those privileges soextended as to include within their domain the vast population of theBritish Empire. To that hour no one had appeared before the court on thepart of the defendants, prepared seriously to question the plaintiffs'assertion to the effect that literary property stood on the same precisefooting, and as much demanded perpetual and universal recognition, asproperty in a house, a mine, a farm, or a ship. As a consequence offailure in this respect there prevailed, and most especially throughoutthe Eastern States, a general impression that there was really but oneside to the question; that the cause of the plaintiffs was that of truth;that in the past might had triumphed over right; that, however doubtfulmight be the expediency of making a decree to that effect, there could belittle doubt that justice would thereby be done; and that, while rejectingas wholly inexpedient the idea of perpetuity, there could be but slightobjection to so far recognizing that of universality as to grant toBritish authors the same privileges that thus far had been accorded to ourown.
Throughout those years, nevertheless, the effort to obtain from thelegislative authority a decree to that effect had proved an utter failure.Time and again had the case been up for trial, but as often had theplaintiffs' counsel wholly failed to agree among themselves as to theconsequences that might reasonably be expected to result from recognitionof their clients' so-called rights. Northern and Eastern advocates,representing districts in which schools and colleges abounded, insistedthat perpetuity and universality of privilege must result in giving thedefendants cheaper books. Southern counsel, on the contrary, representingdistricts in which schools were rare, and students few in number, insistedthat extension of privilege would have the effect of giving to plantershandsome editions of the works they needed, while preventing thepublication of "cheap and nasty" editions, fitted for the "mudsills" ofNorthern States. Failing thus to agree among themselves they failed toconvince the jury, mainly representing, as it did, the Centre and theWest, as a consequence of which, verdicts favorable to the defendants had,on each and every occasion, been rendered.
A thoroughly adverse popular will having thus been manifested, it was nowdetermined to try the Senate, and here the chances for privilege werebetter. With a population little greater than that of Pennsylvania, theNew England States had six times the Senatorial representation. Withreaders not a fifth as numerous as were those of Ohio, Carolina, Flor