292 ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q. C. M. P. 



or may take the shape of inventions to lessen labour and advance iu 

 that way processes nsetiil to mankind — and would suj?gest that, in the 

 case of the individuals, they were eminently deserving of protection and 

 recognition; and, taking the productions of a nation in the aggregate, 

 might well be said, without any extravagance of language, to consti- 

 tute a national property or a national interest, speaking in popular 

 language. Yet what is the fact in relation to both those subjects of 

 copyright or patent right? 1 said a day or two ago that some English 

 judges had declared that our earliest Statutes upon the subject of 

 copyright were but an affirmance of a ijrinciple which was embodied in 

 the Common Law. That has not been generally accepted. The ear- 

 liest of our Statutes dates back to the time of Queen Anne. But 

 though those opinions have been entertained by some Judges as to the 

 existence of a common law right of protection to copyright, certainly 

 they were not generally held, and certainly they were not views that 

 were ever held to have any operation in the sense of establishing prop- 

 erty outside the municipal law of England. I think the law of France 

 is the same. I do not know any country which has protection except 

 by comparatively recent legislation either for copyright or for inven- 

 tion. I do not think there is any trace of it — and I speak subject to 

 the correction of the eminent Jurists I am addressing — in the earlier 

 systems of law, especially the Roman law. 



The President. — The first trace in France was in the form of a royal 

 license for printing. 



Sir Charles Russell. — Quite so. JISTow I wiir state what the con- 

 dition of things is internationally upon both these subjects. A good 

 many of the civilized Powers have by international arrangement — I use 

 international arrangement as distinguished from international law — 

 sought to bring their mutual relations on the subject into consonance 

 with municipal law. 



Now, first as to copyriglit. One of the earlist International Con- 

 ventions to which Great Britain was a party dealing with copyright 

 was as recent as the year 1886; and up to that time it had been a mat- 

 ter of great complaint, as regards many foreign countries, on the part 

 of English authors that their books were re-published under circum- 

 stances which gave them no reward whatever for their labour. And 

 great complaints were made, especially of one great English-speaking 

 community, — I mean, of America, though it also had its complaints, 

 and well-founded complaints, which I shall presently refer to — but one 

 great complaint was that in America English books were reproduced, 

 and the profit of their reproduction went into the pocket not of 

 1070 the original author, but into entirely difterent channels; and to 

 the general Convention I am about to refer to, America was no 

 party. The ]>art the United States of America played in the matter I 

 will mention later; but, in 1886, Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, 

 Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Switzerland, Hayti and Tunis were parties 

 to the International Copyright Convention of that year; and, under 

 that Convention, authors of any of the countries, parties thereto or 

 representatives of those authors, enjoy in the other countries for their 

 works, whether published in one of those countries or not, the rights 

 which the respective laws of those countries, either then or thereafter, 

 give to the nationals of the particular country. 



The enjoyment of these rights is made subject by the Convention to 

 compliance with the conditions and formalities prescribed by the law of 

 the country of origin of the work, and does not extend in other coun- 

 tries beyond the terms of protection granted in the country of origin. 



