Literary Property and International Copyright. 115 



Until within a comparatively recent period, American publishers 

 had opposed international copyright, and for no other reason within 

 the bounds of knowledge or reasonable conjecture, than the damaging 

 effect such an arrangement might have upon their morally contraband 

 traffic in the poor author's brain-work. But, experience like that of 

 Messrs. Roberts Brothers, in the case named, so affected some of our 

 leading publishers as to produce m them a "change of heart." Find- 

 ing that the prestige of their " authorized American editions " was 

 destroyed, and their enormous profits greatly reduced by the action of 

 parties who cared as little for the "courtesy of the trade" as they did 

 for the rights of authors, these publishers came to the front and mag- 

 nanimously asked for an international arrangement. 



But the work of sanctification was not yet perfect. They were not 

 willing, nor are they yet willing to accept the fair and honest scheme 

 proposed by England, which is, in effect, that English copyright be 

 recognized and protected in the United States, and American copy- 

 right in Great Britain; so that a work published in either country 

 shall be protected in the other without reprinting, which doubles the 

 original cost of manufacture, and thus imposes an extra burden upon 

 the reader. On the contrary, they insist that, to entitle an English 

 book to protection in this country, it must be reprinted or manufac- 

 tured here by a subject or citizen of the United States. What they 

 ask is, not protection and justice to authors, but monopoly and pro- 

 tection to American publishers. In the language of Mr. William 

 Appleton, in a letter to the London Times, they claim that the 

 arrangement offered by England is "but a kind of legal saddle for the 

 English publisher to ride his author into the American market." 



It cannot be denied that their treatment of this question gives 

 some color of truth to the epigram that "publishers drink their wine 

 out of authors' skulls." 



There are other interesting and important phases of the subject 

 which must be wholly omitted from the present discussion, the proper 

 limits of this paper having already been exceeded. 



The only plausible thing that has been said in justification or pallia- 

 tion of our national attitude in this matter is, that it furnishes the 

 people with abundance of cheap literature. 



There is room for grave doubt, whether the great volume of cheap 

 literature which floods the land is, in truth, a blessing to the people, 

 ^or is it by any means certain that international copyright would 

 seriously diminish the supply of reasonably cheap editions of works 

 that are worthy of publication. Different classes of readers would 

 require issues suited to taste and purchasing ability ; and the interest 



