From the London Art-Journal.
The recent judgment of Lord Campbell in Boosey v. Jeffreys, which has settled finally the much litigated question of the right of a foreigner to copyright in this country, whether of books, pictures, or music, has been alleged as an excuse for a public meeting of authors and publishers, to appeal against the concession of such a right, and to procure a reversal of the decision, should his lordship be disposed to overrule his own judgment in the House of Lords. The direct impulse to the present agitation, however, appears to have been certain proceedings commenced against Mr. Bohn and others, by Mr. Murray, for their alleged invasion of his copyrights in the works of Washington Irving; of which cheap editions have been issued, on the faith of a recent opinion of Lord Cranworth, wholly at variance with that which has lately been pronounced by the Court of Error, by no fewer than four publishers. The defendants in these cases are of course the leading instigators of this movement, and appear to have prevailed upon Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton to take the chair at a public meeting of Authors and Publishers, at the Hanover Square Rooms, for the purpose of discussing the question in all its bearings. Although the authors and publishers of England were but slenderly represented on the occasion, and even those who were present were far from unanimous, several ingenious and even brilliant speeches were delivered, and resolutions were carried, tending to support the Chairman's view of the subject; viz., to procure a revision of the law which declares foreign authors resident abroad, to be entitled to copyright in this country; to form a society to consider the steps necessary to obtain the proposed readjustment of the law; and lastly, to collect subscriptions to indemnify the gentlemen now acting on the defensive, in the various actions for the alleged invasion of copyright, in the expensive process of appealing against Lord Campbell's decision to the House of Lords. We confess that we have not been convinced by any of the arguments adduced on this occasion, able and plausible as many of them were, that we should violate that great principle of justice, which forbids that we should do evil that good may come; and that because foreign nations cannot be brought to a sense of the dishonesty of their habitual invasions of British Copyright, we should make reprisals upon their authors, and deny them that protection which they so dishonestly withhold to us. Still less can we affirm a proposition which would go back from twenty five to thirty years, and deprive English booksellers of copyrights for which, on the faith of the law as it then stood, they have paid very considerable sums of money. The impression, that if we deprive American authors of the copyright they have hitherto enjoyed in England, we shall force them and their readers to agree to an international arrangement, we believe to be entirely fallacious. There are very few American authors whose copyrights have proved of any material value to English publishers; and even of that few, the majority have retired for some years past, almost wholly from the field of literature. Washington Irving, Cooper, and Prescott, are almost the only authors who have a marketable value in this country; and two out of the three have written little that is worthy of their genius for many years. Besides, the American buccaneer knows full well that the chief weight of the sacrifice, if American copyrights were to be declared null and void in this country, would fall upon neither Mr. Irving, Mr. Cooper, nor Mr. Prescott, but upon Messrs. Murray and Bentley, the British possessors of their copyrights. If, therefore, the question be mooted at all, it should not be with a view to a retrospective operation. But we more than doubt, if America, uninfluenced by worthier motives, will ever be driven to a recognition of the rights of British authors, for the sake of protecting the interests of the very few of its native writers who look to England for the chief reward of their literary labor. America, in her rage for cheap editions, has almost annihilated her own literature, and her unwarrantable piracy of our best authors, does but react on those of her own. If unable to understand the impolicy of her present course, will mulcting Mr. Murray and Mr. Bentley induce her to abandon her wholesale appropriations of English literary property? or, will our becoming robbers ourselves diminish the wholesale piracy of our neighbors? We think not. The arguments of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, which apply to the conduct of America in refusing to entertain the question of international copyright, are unanswerable; but if she prefers the selfish demands of the million to the interests of her own writers, she is not likely to be deterred from continuing the work of spoliation because we, at length, determine to follow her example. It cannot be doubted, for one moment, that it was the intention of the act at present in force, to recognize the copyright of foreigners whose works were first published in this country, and it is equally clear that the law for the protection of the patents of foreigners in England, was conceived in the same spirit. Why should we refuse protection to the writings of a foreign author, and concede it to his scientific discoveries? If we are to interpret the law as Sir E. Bulwer Lytton and Mr. Bohn would have us do, why should we grant to any foreign inventor the patent by which his property is secured in this country? More than twenty years ago the late Mr. Murray paid Washington Irving 1500l. for his Tales of a Traveller; 3000l. for his Columbus; 1000l., for his Granada; and 1000l. for his Bracebridge Hall. Is it to be endured, that because American booksellers are engaged in an unauthorized republication of every English book which they consider worth reprinting, we should, after so long a forbearance, become pirates in our turn; and thus despoil, not the foreign aggressor, but our own respectable publishers, of a right in which so large an amount of capital and enterprise has been embarked.
Whatever difference of opinion, therefore, there may be as to the measures which are most likely to force upon our neighbors a fair recognition of the rights of our authors, by a system of reprisal which we could never be brought to admire, and which we consider beneath the dignity of our national character, there can be none as to the absurdity of attempting so to do, by a retrospective operation which has neither justice nor common honesty to recommend it. We are far from desiring to attach any moral blame to the gentlemen whose reprints, in this country, of the works of Irving and others, have given occasion for the present controversy. The state of the law, as interpreted by Lord Cranworth, and other of our eminent jurists, appears to have warranted their belief that they were perfectly authorized in so doing. There are, however, considerations of courtesy which ought always to be observed by persons of the same profession towards each other, which should prevent them from doing all that even the law entitles them to do, where, by such a course, they are prejudicing the interests of their respectable brother tradesmen, on occasions on which they had good ground to believe that they have done every thing they could to secure the rights to which they lay claim. Neither is the position of the author to be wholly overlooked. So far back as 1813 or 1814, Washington Irving was a resident in this country, engaged in mercantile pursuits, as a partner in a British firm, and was as much an Englishman as either Mr. Leslie or Mr. Stuart Newton. He was, indeed, a resident in England at the date of the publication of several of his works. But the principle, if carried out fairly, would compromise the interests of painters and print-publishers, as well as of litterateurs and booksellers. If the arguments employed at the late meeting, are at all tenable, the valuable copyrights of Messrs. Moon, Graves & Co., Colnaghi, or Hogarth, and other printsellers, in the engravings executed from the works of Leslie, Newton, Ohalon, and others, are completely at the mercy of any one who may think it worth his while to reproduce them. The sort of retaliation, therefore, which is now suggested, would be equivalent to that of cutting off the nose for the purpose of being revenged upon the face.
It is quite true that in 1845, in Chappell v. Purday, the Court of Exchequer was of opinion that a foreign author residing abroad, who composed a work there, could have no copyright in this country; a decision which was subsequently confirmed in the same Court in Boosey v. Purday. These judgments have, however, been entirely overruled by Lord Campbell, who on a late occasion pronounced an opinion in the teeth of these decisions, and whose impressions on this question are said to be shared by a large majority of the Judges of the Court of Queen's Bench. The point may therefore be considered as settled; and as further litigation in the Court of Chancery can only be productive of ruinous expense and vexation, it is much to be desired that an amicable arrangement of the differences of the respective publishers may be entered into, which, whilst it recognizes the proper principle, will avert the necessity of further contests on the subject. Mr. Colburn was, it appears, in favor of the anti-foreign copyright disputants, and has, therefore, clearly invited the invasion of his own copyrights of the works of American authors. As, however, he is understood to have virtually, if not ostensibly, retired from the publishing trade, he has for the future, at least, but little interest in the matter.
The speeches of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton and of Mr. Bohn, at the late meeting, contain many facts and illustrations, which will be found of service in considering the question of international copyright. Mr. Bohn has already done much by the publication of cheap editions of standard authors, at a very moderate price, to render good books accessible to the public, and is placed by his position as a bookseller, beyond the suspicion of having been actuated by mercenary or unworthy motives in the matter. We question however if the general interests of authors and publishers have not suffered materially from his reprints. When Mr. Colburn attributed to American piracy the discouraging fact that for books for which he could once afford to pay 1000l., he cannot now give more than from 100l. to 150l., he appears to have overlooked the prevalence of cheap literature generally in this country; and the ruinous competition which is now going on among rival booksellers. Who is likely to purchase his guinea and a half editions of Cooper's novels, when he can obtain from Mr. Bohn the works of Washington Irving (large and handsomely printed volumes) at two shillings each? Besides, the same system of piracy was at work when he purchased Mr. Cooper's copyrights, as is in operation now. He recommends British publishers not to purchase another copyright from an American author until his government have consented to enter into some international arrangement; and so far we agree with him in his suggestion. It is a remarkable fact, however, that whilst British authors are protesting in their speeches and writings against foreign appropriations of their copyrights, they are often very much flattered by their adoption. The audacious single-volume piracies of Galignani and Baudry of Paris, of the poetry of Byron, Scott, Southey, Moore, Coleridge, Shelley and others, were often looked upon by the parties who might be expected to consider themselves most aggrieved, as conferring a distinction upon their writings calculated to increase their reputation in this country. In several instances within our knowledge, the materials for the biographical notices which prefaced the respective volumes were supplied by the authors themselves! Lord Byron, so far from expressing any indignation at the liberty which Messrs. Galignani had taken with his writings, assisted them in identifying them, and wrote interesting autograph letters to aid in their illustration.
Southey, as we gather from one of his letters, was rather flattered than otherwise at the republication of his poetry in Paris, and if rumor may be credited, Moore corrected the proofs, and furnished materials for the biography of one or more of the foreign editions of his works. Mr. Bowles and several other poets whose writings were included in this series, not only furnished notes for the Biographical Prefaces, but indicated to the editor the publications from which their fugitive writings should be collected. Mrs. Hemans furnished several notes and suggestions for one of the American editions of her works, and sent copies to her friends as evidence of her translantic popularity. In fact we have rarely met with an author whose writings have been deemed worthy of being reprinted abroad, who has not considered himself flattered by the preference. We do not of course profess to believe that their publishers were equally complimented by this unceremonious invasion of their property. So long as the sale of such piracies were limited to the continent, we doubt if they were the means of abstracting a great deal from the pockets of either the author or publisher; but for very many years they were allowed to be imported in single copies, during which period they were introduced into this country in large quantities. They were, however, purchased rather from their compactness than for their cheapness, and the instant Mr. Murray published a handsomely printed single volume edition of the Poetry of Lord Byron at a moderate price, the trade in French and Belgian piracies of British copyrights was almost destroyed. Why should we not print cheap editions for exportation? The drawback on the paper, and the superiority of our printing and binding would be sufficiently obvious to enable us to obtain a better price than would be given for such coarse reprints as are usually hurried into circulation in America. We cannot but believe that such an enterprise might be carried out successfully. There is scarcely an edition, at a moderate price, of any American author, that is worthy of the library; and looking at the quality of the paper and print, we doubt if the American booksellers could afford a volume of similar quality at the price charged by Mr. Bohn for his reprints.
Any plan is, however, better than that suggested at the late meeting, of becoming pirates ourselves to cure our neighbors of their buccaneering propensities. The comparatively small number of works of mark which are now produced in America (there have been no prose writers of any very great eminence since the heyday of the literary lives of Irving, Cooper, and Channing, if we except Mr. Prescott) goes far to show that national literature is all but annihilated in that country, and that the evil must eventually, in a great measure, correct itself. In a recent American newspaper it is stated that protection is not refused in that country to any British author who will go through the necessary forms by which he becomes qualified for the privilege. Our readers will smile to hear that one of these conditions consists of an oath, by which the candidate for copyright in America is required to "renounce for ever all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereign, whatever, and particularly to the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland!" The late Captain Marryat declined to comply with these terms, although another English author, of undeniable reputation, has, it is affirmed, not scrupled to bolt this denationalizing pill. We have not heard if he has turned his privilege to any account.