Recent discussions on the abolition of patents for inventions in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the Netherlands

by Unknown

EXTRACTS FROM CORRESPONDENCE ON COPYRIGHT LAW IN CANADA.

Laid before the Canadian Parliament by Command of His Excellency the Governor-General.

Extract from a Report of a Committee of the Honourable the Privy Council of Canada, approved by His Excellency the Governor-General in Council, on the 27th May, 1868.

“On the recommendation of the Honourable the Minister of Customs, the Committee advise an uniform ad valorem duty throughout this Dominion of 12½ per cent., being the rate fixed and collected in the Province of Canada, previous to the Confederation of the Provinces—and to establish such regulations and conditions as may be subsistent with any Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom then in force as may be deemed requisite and equitable with regard to the admission of such books, and to the distribution of the proceeds of such duty to or among the party or parties beneficially interested in the Copyright.”

(From Memorandum by the Minister of Finance.)

“Not one-tenth part of the reprints which find their way to Canada are entered at the Custom-house, or pay duty.... It is proposed, in order perfectly to secure the English author, that every Canadian publisher who reprints English Copyrights should take out a licence, and that effectual practical checks should be interposed, so that the duty on the number of copies actually issued from the press should be paid into the Canadian Government by Canadian publishers for the benefit of the English authors. It is believed that the English authors would benefit enormously by the proposed change. At present the amount received by Canada for duty on English Copyrights, and paid over by Canada to the Imperial Government for the benefit of English authors, is a mere trifle.”

(From Mr. Lovell.)

“Montreal, June 11, 1868.

“In 1849, I believe, the Government of Canada, with the sanction of Her Majesty the Queen, gave United States publishers the right to bring reprints of English Copyright works into this country on payment of Customs duty of 15 per cent., which has since been reduced to 12½ per cent., the proceeds of the duties to be forwarded to the English authors as a compensation for the privileges secured to the American publishers.

“The people of the Dominion, and especially the printing and publishing interests, feel that they ought to possess at least equal privileges to those conceded to the foreigner. There are several establishments in the Dominion that would esteem it a great boon to be allowed to reprint English Copyrights on the same terms as are now secured to United States publishers, and would gladly pay the 12½ per cent. to the English authors on the total number of copies printed, sure to be very considerable. At present only a few hundred copies pay duty, but many thousands pass into the country without registration, and pay nothing at all; thus having the effect of seriously injuring the publishers of Great Britain, to the consequent advantage of those of the United States.”

(Extract from Letter from Sir Louis Mallet to the Under-Secretary of State, C.O.)

“It is obvious that, looking to the geographical position of the United States and the North American Confederation, any arrangement with respect to Copyright which does not apply to both must be always imperfect and unsatisfactory, and it is therefore extremely desirable, if possible, that the Canadian question should be considered in connexion with any negotiations conducted with the United States Government.

“Another serious objection to the sanction by Her Majesty’s Government of such a proposal appears to my Lords to be, that, while the public policy of the mother-country enforces an absolute monopoly in works of literature for a term of years, it is very undesirable to admit in British Colonial possessions an arrangement which, whatever advantages it may possess (and my Lords fully admit that much may be said in its favour), rests upon a wholly different principle.

“It would be difficult, if such a principle were admitted in the British Colonies, to refuse to recognise it in the case of foreign countries, and thus it might come to pass that the British public might be called upon to pay a high price for their books, in order to afford what is held to be the necessary encouragement to British authors, while the subjects of other countries and the Colonial subjects of Her Majesty would enjoy the advantages of cheap British literature provided for them at the expense of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom.”

(Extract from a Paper by the Minister of Finance on the Copyright-Law in Canada.)

“The consequence of this anomalous state of the Law is that Canada receives large supplies of American reprints of English Copyright books, which are sold at a much higher rate than if printed in Canada; while, at the same time, so generally is the payment of the 12½ per cent. Customs duty evaded, and so trifling is the whole amount realised from that source (the total received last year for the whole Dominion of Canada being only $799.43, or 164l. 5s. 3d. sterling, the average of the preceding four years being only 115l. 1s. 3d., sterling), that so far as regards the pecuniary or other interests of English authors, for whose protection the duty was imposed and in whose behalf it is collected, the effect is practically the same as if the reprints were avowedly admitted duty free....

“It is believed that if this privilege were extended to Canadian publishers, they would avail themselves of it to a very large extent, and as the Excise duty of 12½ per cent. could, under proper regulations, be very easily levied, a substantial revenue would accrue therefrom for the benefit of English authors; and further, that a great impetus would be given to the interests of printers, publishers, paper manufacturers, type founders, and other important kindred branches of material industry, and indirectly to the interests of literature and literary men....

“An American or any other foreign author, by publishing his work first in the United Kingdom, may obtain for himself all the benefits of the English Copyright-Law. One of those benefits, as the law now stands, is to prohibit its reprint in any portion of Her Majesty’s dominions out of the United Kingdom. He can equally procure its Copyright in the United States, and the consequence is that the price of literature is enhanced to British subjects in all Her Majesty’s Colonial possessions, since to them and to them only can the prohibition to republish apply or be made effectual.

“England does not confine the protection which she thus extends to her own authors. The foreign author is protected against all her Colonial subjects, provided he publishes first within the confines of Great Britain and Ireland. She will not recognise a publication in a Colonial possession as a compliance with the Copyright Act, but limits the place of publication to the United Kingdom.

“Such the undersigned understands to have been the solemn interpretation of the law by the House of Lords in the recent case of ‘Routledge and Lowe’ (‘New Law Report,’ Appeal Cases, vol. ii., pp. 100-121), and he would very strongly call attention to the unfair position in which the policy of that law places the Canadian publisher and the Canadian public.

“The mere circumstance of the publishing in the United Kingdom gives the author a monopoly throughout the entire area of the British dominions—that author, in the opinion of the then Lord Chancellor Cairns, need not be a native-born subject of the Crown; he need not be an alien friend sojourning in the United Kingdom; he need not be sojourning in a British Colony, but he may be a foreigner residing abroad. This protection is afforded, in the language of Lord Cairns, to induce the author to publish his work in the United Kingdom.

“If the policy of England, in relation to Copyright, is to stimulate, by means of the protection secured to literary labour, the composition of works of learning and utility, that policy is not incompatible with such a modification of law as will place the Colonial publisher on a footing of equality not only with the publisher in the United States, but even with the publisher in the United Kingdom....

“If the rate of duty, whether import or excise, were inadequate, it would be an equally reasonable argument against the extension of the law; and in that case the rate could be augmented.”