EDITOR'S TABLE. 



4C9 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



lyrTERFATIOKAL COPYRIGHT. 



THE latest scheme for an interna- 

 tional copyright combining some 

 of the more prominent provisions of 

 earlier plans with a new feature of his 

 own, is offered by Mr. R. Pearsall Smith 

 of Philadelphia, and printed in a recent 

 number of the "Nineteenth Century," 

 The comments on the plan of a dozen 

 distinguished Englishmen accompany 

 the article, the publication of which, 

 whatever the fate of the proposal, has 

 served at least one good purpose. By 

 renewing attention to the subject it has 

 set people thinking and provoked dis- 

 cussion, and in a case fraught with such 

 rank injustice to our home as well as to 

 foreign authors, every general stirring 

 up of the question must do good. It 

 will help to quicken the moral sense of 

 the community, and perhaps in time 

 will make it lively enough to force Con- 

 gress into the performance of what all 

 right-thinking persons are agreed is a 

 clear national duty. 



Of the plan itself, however, as a 

 practical working solution of the difB- 

 culty, little that is favorable can be said 

 or expected. Accustomed, through the 

 piratical practices of former years, to an 

 abundant supply of low-priced litera- 

 ture, American readers will not, it is 

 claimed, consent to a monopoly copy- 

 right on foreign books, or, put in anoth- 

 er form, they will continue to deny to 

 the property rights of the foreign au- 

 thor that reasonable measure of pro- 

 tection which is now freely accorded to 

 the rights of our authors at home. 



The reasons assigned for their per- 

 sistence in this palpably unfair discrimi- 

 nation are, in substance, that such a law 

 would mean English prices for foreign 

 books in this country ; it would cause 

 a great diminution in the volume of our 

 literature; cheap editions would disap- 



pear from the market, and the publish- 

 er would be enriched at the expense of 

 the reader, without any corresponding 

 benefit to the author. 



To avoid this imaginary revolution 

 in the literary affairs of the United 

 States, and at the same time secure to 

 the foreign author his dues, the scheme 

 in question proposes to give to any one 

 in this country the privilege of publish- 

 ing in any style and at any price he sees 

 fit, any foreign book he may select, on 

 condition that hej^rs^pay to the author 

 a royalty of ten per cent on the retail 

 price of each copy of the work he ex- 

 pects to sell. The evidence of his com- 

 pliance with this requirement is ob- 

 tained in the form of stamps, which the 

 author is obliged to furnish to every ap- 

 plicant, or as a penalty for refusal suf- 

 fer the loss of all his American rights. 

 A single stamp is to be aflixed to each 

 copy of the book before it leaves the 

 pubHsher's hands ; and is thus expected 

 to serve as a clieck on possible attempts 

 to dispose of unauthorized editions. 



To illustrate the way in which an 

 arrangement of this kind would be 

 likely to work in practice, we will sup- 

 pose that some spirited author ventures 

 upon a choice of publishers, and finding 

 one who is bold enough to negotiate, he 

 bargains to have his book brought out 

 in a style suited to the subject, to his 

 own reputation, and to the class of 

 readers he is expecting to reach, trust- 

 ing the result to the joint interest of his 

 publisher in the enterprise. The next 

 week, six months, or perhaps a year 

 later, as the case may be, he is compelled 

 under the new law to mercilessly cut the 

 throat of his business associate, wiping 

 out his property, and destroying his 

 market, in the interest of another pub- 

 lisher, who, shrewd enough to see his 

 opportunity and having the game in his 



