International copyright

“ While the measure which has become a law is not entirely satisfactory to the friends of international copyright, and must be regarded as experimental as to its ultimate results or workings, all of its advocates feel that it is a huge instalment of justice, and a gratifying victory gained for the indorsement of the principle of international copyright. ”

“ I think everybody would, further, be glad if there could be such a bill as most men could read with some intelligence; that would not need not merely a lawyer, but a copyright lawyer, to interpret. I think most men would be glad, furthermore, in view of the importance of international copyright, if it were such a bill as an intelligent foreigner could understand and an intelligent foreign lawyer could advise about, and such a bill as that the people who are used to it here would thereby be taught something of the general copyright law and could better understand foreign rules. ”

“ We are fully persuaded that it is not only expedient, but in a high degree important to the United States to establish such international copyright laws as will protect the rights of American authors in foreign countries and give similar protection to foreign authors in this country. It would be an act of national honor and justice in which we should find that justice is the wisest policy for nations and brings the richest reward. ”

“ The International Copyright Union has reached in the Berlin convention almost the ideal of copyright legislation, and this has been closely followed in the Buenos Aires convention of the Pan American Union. The world over, there seems to have been a general evolution of copyright protection from the rude and imperfect recognition of intellectual property as cognate to other property, for a term indefinite and in a sense perpetual, almost impossible of enforcement in the lack of statutory protection and penalties. ”

“ The few protectionists who have expressed themselves in favor of an international copyright measure, and some others who have fears as to our publishing interests being able to hold their own against any open competition, insist upon the condition that foreign works to obtain copyright must be wholly remanufactured and republished in this country. ”

“ International copyright, which has now been enacted, extends the right of American authors to foreign countries, and recognizes a parallel right of foreign authors in our own. There is nothing in the constitutional provision which restrains Congress from granting copyright to other than American citizens. ”

“ But I think we may say that the almost unanimous conclusion of American authors latterly has been that we should be thankful to get any bill that recognized the principle of international copyright, being confident that its practical application would so recommend it to the American people that we should get afterwards, if not every amendment of it that we desire, at least every one that is humanly possible. ”

“ Under the system of international copyright, one of two things must be done—either the people must be taxed in the whole of this amount for the benefit of the various persons, abroad and at home, who are now to be invested with the monopoly power, or they must largely diminish their purchases of literary food. ”

“ J. A. Morgan in his work on "The Law of Literature," published in 1876. He suggested that the present copyright law be amended by simply inserting the word "person" in place of "citizen," in which case its privileges would at once be secured to any authors, of whatever nationality, who complied with its requirements.
A few weeks later the meeting was held in Philadelphia whose resolutions in opposition to international copyright (which, as we have shown, were equally forcible against any copyright) we have already quoted. ”

“ International copyright must becloud this sun and bring on the former darkness and dime novel reading. Morally this is all wrong; governmentally it is all right. For it is the duty of governments and families to be selfish, and look out simply for their own. International copyright would benefit a few English authors and a lot of American publishers, and be a profound detriment to twenty million Americans; it would benefit a dozen American authors a few dollars a year, and there an end. The real advantages all go to English authors and American publishers. ”

“ Copyright and patents are on the same footing of regulation by federal legislation, and the executive branch of the government cannot be unmindful of the continued pendency of its consideration by the legislative department, or disregard the constitutional right of that department to conclude international treaties on this important subject. The question of international copyright is one of great interest to the United States. ”

“ And again: "With free trade we shall have just international copyright."
It would be difficult, however, for the protectionists [Pg 33] to show logical grounds for their position. American authors are manufacturers, who are simply asking, first, that they shall not be undersold in their home market by goods imported from abroad on which no (ownership) duty has been paid,—which have, namely, been simply "appropriated;" and secondly, that the government may facilitate their efforts to secure a sale for their own goods in foreign markets. ”

“ This fact we think was not sufficiently calculated upon, and the practical issue was brought before Congress prematurely, in the shape of a bill embodying a copyright in behalf of foreign authors. More time should have been allowed, and systematic measures adopted to sift the question thoroughly before the American people. We had a society organized for the promotion of international copyright, but it was committed to the old plan, and threw the weight of its influence against the new measure. ”

“ Here, as we see, the course of things would be entirely different from that which is observed in regard to books, the monopoly of which has increased in length with the growth, in wealth and number, of the consumers, and is now attempted, by the aid of international copyright, to be extended over millions of men who are yet exempt from its operation. ”

“ They have no business in an international copyright act, agreement, or treaty. The United States copyright for native authors contains no manufacturing restrictions. All we ask is that foreign authors shall enjoy the same privileges we have under our law, and that foreign nations shall give our authors the privileges of their local copyright laws. I do not know any American author of any standing who has ever asked or desired protection against foreign authors. ”

“ Accordingly, international copyright has become the policy of nearly all civilized nations. The term of copyright is longer in most countries than in the United States, ranging from the life of the author and seven years beyond, in England, to a life term and fifty years additional in France and Russia. ”

“ When an author cannot assure to an American publisher the American market he cannot get from that publisher the price he would otherwise secure. In the "international copyright amendment" of 1891, Congress accompanied the manufacturing clause, which prohibited the importation of foreign copies even with the consent of the author, by a proviso permitting certain importations even without the consent of the author—on the homœopathic principle of off-setting one restriction upon authors' rights by another restriction upon authors' rights. ”

“ In few countries is there a copyright office proper, distinctively organized and named, except in certain English colonies, as Australia and Canada, which have now a copyright office and a Registrar of Copyrights.
[Pg 311]
XVIII INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT CONVENTIONS AND ARRANGEMENTS International protection of property
With the growth of civilization, the practice of protecting in all countries the property of the citizen of any other country has also grown, until it is now a generally recognized principle. ”

“ We are struggling here in America to establish an authors' international copyright arrangement, whereby the authors of all civilized nations may be protected in their rights to the profits of their literary labor, and the movement so far has met with generous encouragement. ”

“ One of the not least important results to be looked for from international copyright is a more effective co-operation in their work on the part of the publishers of the two great English-speaking nations. They will find their interest and profit in working together, and the very great extension that may be expected in the custom of a joint investment in the production of books for both markets will bring a very material saving in the first cost, a saving in the advantage of which authors, publishers, and public will alike share. ”

“ Suppose there were no such market for English books as the United States now offers, would English publishers any the less continue to print them? These works are produced mainly for the markets of Great Britain and its English-speaking dependencies. The withholding of an international copyright law does not take away from them what they never possessed or had any right to claim. ”

“ In fact, then, we have a practice which has grown up under existing conditions that makes no distinction between our authors and those of other countries, which is supported by a large class of readers, and which only needs the simplest legal sanction to completely solve the question of international copyright without resort to untried, complicated, and otherwise doubtful business methods. ”

“ International copyright will give to the former limited territory an absolute monopoly of the business of republication, the then great cities of the West being almost as completely deprived of participation therein as are now the towns and cities of Canada and Australia. On the one side, there will be found a few thousand persons interested in maintaining the monopolies that had been granted to authors and publishers, foreign and domestic. On the other, sixty or eighty millions, tired of taxation and determined that books shall be more cheaply furnished. ”

“ Every invention and artwork of imperial Europe was free for reproduction and acquisition in the USA. No developing nation today enjoys this privilege. A combination of international copyright, patent, and trademark laws have robbed developing nations of the autonomy that would allow them to embark on a program of self-improvement comparable to that of America's in its first century as a nation. ”

“ In view of the whole case, your committee are satisfied that no form of international copyright can fairly be urged upon Congress upon reasons of general equity, or of constitutional law; that the adoption of any plan for the purpose which has been laid before us would be of very doubtful advantage to American authors as a class, and would be not only an unquestionable and permanent injury to the manufacturing interests concerned in producing books, but a hindrance to the diffusion of knowledge among the people, and to the cause of universal education ”

“ If the results of these incentives to production seem comparatively small, as they undoubtedly do, it must not be forgotten that the profession of letters in America long suffered, and is still suffering, from the absence of international copyright law. ”

“ He advised also that the American market should be left open to the foreign edition, so that the competition should be perfectly unrestricted.
The proposition that all dealers who would contract to pay to the author a royalty (to be fixed by law) should be at liberty to undertake the publication of a work was at a later date presented to the British Commission by Mr. Farrer and Sir Henry Holland, first with reference to home copyright, and secondly as a suggestion for an international arrangement. ”

“ Copyright evolutionIt may be noted that while throughout the British Empire English precedent is naturally followed, the more restrictive American copyright system has unfortunately influenced legislation in Canada and Newfoundland, and in Australia. France, open-handed to authors of other countries, has afforded precedent for the widest international protection and for the international term; while Spain, with the longest term and most liberal arrangements otherwise, has been followed largely by Latin American countries. ”