George Haven Putnam

“ To the moralist, Free Trade is not most of all important as a means of producing and distributing wealth, (though in that it be the most efficient) but rather as a portion of that movement of humanity which, receiving its greatest impulse eighteen centuries ago, has been steadily ever since removing prejudices, lightening burdens, doing away with abuses, and bringing together into one, different classes and peoples and races. ”

“ In the United States copyright can at present be secured only by a citizen or permanent resident, and there is no regulation to prevent the use, without remuneration, of the literary property of foreign authors. The United States is therefore at present the only country itself possessing a literature of importance, and making a large use of the literature of the world, which has done nothing to recognize and protect by law the rights of foreign authors of whose property it is enjoying the benefit, or to obtain a similar recognition and protection for its own authors abroad. ”

“ I believe that, in the course of time, the general laws of trade would and ought to so regulate the arrangements for supplying the American public with books that, if there were no restriction as to the nationality of the publisher or as to the importation of printed volumes, the author would select the publishing agent, English or American, who could serve him to best advantage; and that that agent would be found to be the man who would prepare for the largest possible circle of American readers the editions best suited to their wants. ”

“ In the meantime, we claim that, in the absence of law, our American publishers, especially those of the present generation, have, of their own free will, given to English authors a large part of the advantage that a law would have secured to them, and have done this without any corresponding advantage of protection for themselves. ”

“ Literary laborers lay claim, therefore, to the same protection for a full and free enjoyment of the results of their labors as is demanded by those who work with their hands and who are in the strict sense of the term manufacturers. Such enjoyment would include the right to sell their productions in the open market where they pleased and how they pleased, and if this right to a free exchange is restricted within political boundaries, is hampered by artificial obstacles, the author is not the full owner of his material ”

“ A great many enterprises, also, desirable in themselves, and that would be of service to the public, no publisher could, under such an arrangement, afford to undertake at all, as, if they proved successful, unscrupulous neighbors would, through rival editions, reap the benefit of his judgment and his advertising. In fact, the business of reprinting would fall largely into the hands of irresponsible parties, from whom no copyright could be collected. ”

“ That which a man has created by his own labor is his own, to do what he will with, subject only to his proportionate contribution to the cost of carrying on the organization of the community under the protection of which his labor has been accomplished, and to the single limitation that the results of his labor shall not be used to the [Pg 2] detriment of his fellow-men.
It is not in the power of legislators to make or to modify the laws of trade; it is their business to act in accordance with these laws. ”

“ We claim, also, that with reference to the rights of labor, property, and capital, the free-trader is the true protectionist. It is the free-trader who demands for the laborer the fullest, freest use of [Pg 3] the results of his labor, and for the capitalist the widest scope in the employment of his capital ”

“ 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 ”

“ It must be an ungrateful generation that, in its love of 'cheap copies,' can lose all regard for 'the dear originals.'
"That, whereas, your petitioner has sold sundry of his copyrights to certain publishers for a sum of money, he does not see how the public, which is only a larger firm, can justly acquire even a share in copyright, except by similar means—namely, by purchase or assignment. That the public having constituted itself by law the executor and legatee of the author, ought in justice, and according to practice in other cases, to take to his debts as well as his literary assets. ”

“ The very law of nature protests against an unnatural law which compels an author to write for anybody's posterity except his own.
"Finally, whereas it has been urged, 'if an author writes for posterity, let him look to posterity for his reward,' your petitioner adopts that very argument, and on its very principle prays for the adoption of the bill introduced by Mr. Sergeant Talfourd, seeing that by the present arrangement posterity is bound to pay everybody or anybody but the true creditor."
In France perpetual copyright was guaranteed from very early times. ”

“ The questions relating to copyright belong naturally to the sphere of political economy. They have to do with the laws governing production, and with the principles regulating supply and demand; and they are directly dependent upon a due determining of the proper functions of legislation, and of the relations which legislation, having for its end the welfare of the community as a whole, ought to bear towards production and trade. ”

“ That a work which endures for many years must be of a sterling character, and ought to become national property; but at the expense of the public, or at any expense save that of the author or his descendants. ”

“ That as a landed proprietor does not lose his right to his estate in perpetuity by throwing open his grounds for the convenience and gratification of the public, neither ought the property of an author in his works to be taken from him, unless all parks become commons. ”

“ The strongest opposition to a copyright measure has as a rule come from the protectionists. Richard Grant White said in 1868: "The refusal of copyright in the United States to British authors is in fact, though it is not so avowed, a part of the 'American' protective system." ”

“ The recommendation had been made that, for the sake of securing cheap books for the people, the law should give to all dealers the privilege of printing an author's books, and should fix a copyright to be paid to the author that should secure him a "fair profit for his work." ”

“ The experience of our American houses, however, who have had business with English authors and publishers is that it takes some little time for them to obtain a clear perception of the requirements of the American market and of American readers, and of the very material differences existing between the status here and in Great Britain. ”