i68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



apprehension the application of the word " monopoly " to persons who 

 possess rights under the copyright law is an entire mistake ; it is 

 merely a contrivance, arising- out of the peculiar nature of book prop- 

 erty, to put that property upon the same footing as other kinds of 

 property. I think that that is all I have to say upon the general part 

 of the question. 



Q. Are we to understand it to be your contention that, under the 

 old common law of the country, there would have been a right in the 

 author to sell or not to sell his book in any way he pleased, and that 

 for the convenience of the public the statute law has intervened, and, 

 by what is commonly called the law of copyright, has attached certain 

 conditions, and even restrictions, to that common-law right, for the 

 benefit of the author on the one hand and of the public on the other ; 

 is that generally your view ? 



A. I would not suggest for a moment that that is the actual his- 

 torical origin of copyright law, but I think that that is the way in 

 which it ought to be regarded as a matter of equity. 



Me. Teollope. Those who have given evidence before us rather in 

 opposition to than in support of the present law of copyright have 

 sometimes done so on the plea that the law at present is favorable 

 rather to booksellers than to authors, and they have based that plea on 

 an idea that authors, as a rule, dispose of their copyrights to publishers, 

 so that the property becomes not the property of the man who has 

 worked with his brain, but merely of a speculator. As far as you are 

 aware, do you think that authors do dispose of their copyrights entirely ? 



A. I cannot say. I certainly do not do so myself, and I do not 

 think that I know among the men of science anybody who does ; but 

 it appears to me that, supposing such to be the case, it applies to all 

 sorts of property, and to the relations of needy men to middle-men of 

 all kinds. 



Q. The second part of your answer is perhaps a sufficient answer to 

 the next question which I was going to ask you. As far as you are 

 aware it is not so ; but, even if it were so, you do not think that that 

 would be any argument against the present law of copyright ? 



-4. No ; I take it that that must inevitably happen wherever men 

 want money, and there are persons who are willing to buy their prop- 

 erty. 



Q. It has been suggested to us, though I can hardly say that it has 

 been absolutely recommended, that, in lieu of the present modes of 

 disposing of literary propert}-, an author should have a right to a con- 

 tinued royalty; that is to say, that any publisher should be enabled to 

 bring out an author's work, paying him some proportion of the price, 

 which should be fixed not at all by the author, but by the law. Do 

 you imagine that such a scheme as that could work ? 



A. No. Who is to be the judge as to what is the value of the 

 author's work but himself ? Who is there in the Government who is 



