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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



priety of protecting copyright, and it 

 appears to us that the principle of copy- 

 right, if admitted, is one of universal 

 application. We, therefore, recommend 

 that this country should pursue the 

 policy of recognizing the author's rights, 

 irrespective of nationality." 



Very different was the treatment 

 of this question under similar circum- 

 stances by the American Government. 

 Its attitude in regard to the rights of 

 authorship has long been the scandal 

 of the civilized world, and efforts from 

 time to time have been made to induce 

 a change in the national policy. A com- 

 mittee of the United States Senate was 

 appointed in 1873 to consider the sub- 

 ject, and report what action it is desir- 

 able to take. The proceeding that fol- 

 lowed was nothing less than disgraceful, 

 evincing, as it did, a contemptuous indif- 

 ference toward the whole subject. Not 

 the slightest interest was expressed in 

 it, either as a question of private right 

 or public honor. While the English 

 report opened the whole inquiry on 

 broad moral grounds, the American re- 

 port sharply closed it to all considera- 

 tions of equity, justice, and right. While 

 the hand of the lawyer was hardly dis- 

 cernible in the English document, no 

 other hand was visible in ours. In- 

 stead of a valuable and instructive state- 

 ment befitting the magnitude and seri- 

 ousness of the question, the American 

 report was but a shabby tract of half a 

 dozen pages, arguing as usual that the 

 Constitution is in the way of any change 

 of existing practices. In the discussion 

 before the committee, arguments on the 

 right and wrong of the question were 

 objected to by the senatorial chairman 

 as irrelevant, and under his ruling the 

 debate shrank into a mere pettifogging 

 wrangle over constitutional clauses, and 

 a ventilation of the most ridiculous 

 projects, which were held in the report 

 to show that the Americau people are 

 not agreed upon the subject. The com- 

 mittee declared that they saw nothing 

 wrong which it is desirable to correct, 



and recommend Congress to take no 

 action in the matter. It was but an- 

 other exemplification of the way legal 

 and constitutional forms are used in 

 this country for the protection of pal- 

 pable wrongs. Instead of asking first 

 what is right, and then demanding that 

 the law shall be made to conform to it, 

 the people, like the lawyers, ask first 

 what is the law, and then hold that 

 this determines the right. 



"PIRATICAL publishers;' or a pi- 



RA TICAL G O VERXMEZ T. 



We print a brief discussion of the 

 copyright question, by Mr. Leonard 

 Scott, under the title of " Piratical Pub- 

 lishers," which, whatever its demerits, 

 has at least the merit of being thor- 

 oughly American. Although discuss- 

 ing the question how a given act should 

 be morally characterized, his standard 

 of judgment is but the dictum of Amer- 

 ican law. 



It is not easy to defend a right and 

 its opposite wrong by the same argu- 

 ment, as the reasons which favor the 

 one destroy the other. Hence, in most 

 discussions upon the subject, it will be 

 found that those who oppose interna- 

 tional copyright do it upon grounds that 

 are equally subversive of domestic copy- 

 right. All arguments which put the 

 public advantages of cheap literature 

 above the rights of authors to property 

 in their books, tell just as effectually 

 against the American as the English 

 author, and logically require the imme- 

 diate destruction of American copyright 

 laws. If the taking of Professor Tyn- 

 dall's book from him without payment, 

 that the American public may have it 

 cheaply, is no crime, neither would the 

 taking of Professor Silliman's book, for 

 the same purpose, be a crime. Mr. 

 Scott reasons that, although a right 

 might be conceded in a Utopian state 

 of society, where one universal govern- 

 ment should legislate for the equal ad- 

 vantage of all, yet, as this is not the 



