meeting of the Subscribers, as soon as they shall have a report to make to them." And His Royal Highness having quitted the Chair, it was resolved unanimously, "That the cordial thanks of this meeting be presented to HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUKE OF KENT, for his condescension in taking the Chair." (A subscription was immediately commenced.) ADDRESS TO THE PARLIAMENT OF GREAT BRITAIN, ON THE CLAIMS OF AUTHORS TO THEIR OWN Copy-Right. THIRD EDITION; NOT PUBLISHED. BY A MEMBER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. AN ADDRESS, fe. THE HE right of Authors to their own COPY has been often brought under consideration: the opinions of the ablest Lawyers and the most enlightened men were divided on the subject. The House of Lords, however, at last, decided for the public, and it is no longer a legal question; but as there is now a bill pending in Parliament to amend the Statute of the 8th of Anne, respecting literary property, the present Address is offered, to show how the question stands at this time among the parties concerned. Authors are deprived of the common law-right to their own labors, because it was feared that, by permitting them to have an exclusive property in their literary works, the public would be injured. This is the substance of every argument, however ingeniously diversified, that has been used, to show the necessity of limiting the duration of literary property to the author; and, the general principle of expediency, the only plausible argument to wrest it from him. When the great question of copy-right first underwent a full discussion, the only Judge in the King's Bench who opposed it as the author's property, was Mr. Justice Yates; with him it was considered as of a nature too incorporeal and evanescent to have a specific value, yet he allowed it to be sufficiently substantial to exist for a term of years, to be circumscribed by the law, and to be protected by it. A speech made to a public assembly, a public lecture for which the author is paid by his audience, a sermon preached by a Bishop from his manuscript, or a charge delivered by an Archdeacon to the diocesan clergy; are not too evanescent to be protected; not by Statute, but by common law; and no man is permitted to derive any profit from either, except the author, even though the sale should be confined to the very persons to whom the instruction, advice, or information, were given. This is the law as it now stands, and is founded upon the principles of the common law of England. It is therefore clear that it is not the incorporeal nature of ideas which has created the real difficulty of securing them to the author, and of acknowledging him to be true owner; but he is deprived of his ownership as a measure of policy. At this time, I trust, it will not be difficult to show, that the guardians of the public entertained groundless apprehensions on this point. That the question of copy-right may be clearly and distinctly before the reader, I will first recite the Acts of the Legislature, which have been made at different times in aid of literature. The Licensing Act of the 13th and 14th of Charles II. compelled all Printers and Booksellers to enter whatever they printed 1 Upon this point, my Lord Mansfield has thus expressed himself:-" No disposition, no transfer of paper upon which the composition is written, marked, or impressed, (though it gives the power to print and publish) can be construed a conveyance of the copy, without the author's express consent to print and publish; much less against his will. "The property of the copy, thus narrowed, may equally go down from generation to generation, and possibly continue for ever; though neither the author nor his representatives should have any manuscript whatsoever of the work, original, duplicate, or transcript." With respect to copy-right after publication, he adopts this opinion: "He who pays for a literary composition buys the improvement, knowledge, ör amusement, he can derive from it: but the right to the work itself, the copy-right, remains in him whose industry composed it. The buyer might as truly claim the merit of the composition by his purchase, as the right of multiplying copies and reaping the profits." |