AMERICAN COPYRIGHT
(To the Editor of The London Mercury)
Sir,—I trust you will find room to insert this letter after the space you have given to Mr. G. H. Putnam. We are all grateful for the work that Mr. Putnam has done, but—to use an American phrase, which no doubt he will appreciate—"there are others" who have worked equally hard, and not infrequently with a more satisfactory result. We must thank you, therefore, for your brief Editorial Note in the March issue.
The real reason, however, for this letter is to correct some of the statements made by Mr. Putnam. He glorifies the new American Act because of its liberal allowance of 120 days' "interim" copyright. He has understated his own case. The Act gives sixty days from the publication abroad in which to deposit a copy at Washington, and four months from the date of deposit in which to take up the copyright, subject to the numerous harassing technicalities of the Act. An author, therefore, has 180 instead of 120 days.
In Mr. Putnam's second statement he tries to score a point against Great Britain. As in the former paragraph he understated his case, in this he would overstate it.
He complains that American authors have to make a bona-fide publication in Great Britain within fourteen days of the publication in the United States. He italicises bona fide. He must have overlooked the fact that publication is an essential part of copyright in the States just as much as it is in Great Britain. This item then can be ruled out.
He contrasts, however, the meagre allowance of fourteen days under the British Act against the liberal allowance of 180 (not 120) days under the American Act. It must be pointed out with due emphasis that when the author is not hampered by typesetting clauses, printed copyright notices, and filing difficulties, time in the matter of publication is really of little account. The American publisher has merely to ship off a consignment before he publishes the book in the States and to await instructions from the London house that the consignment has arrived. There is no difficulty in this step. So long as the technicalities of United States Act still stand we are sick of these counter-irritants, which, now the war is over, "cut no ice."
We have heard that the Typesetters' Union—of which Mr. Putnam seems unduly alarmed—could be made to understand from statistics supplied that they are standing in their own light. But, perhaps, if they are still obdurate on the practical side, they might be influenced by the argument of the idealist "that it is a disgrace to a civilised nation to stand outside the intellectual Union of other civilised Nations." The Americans have had the opportunity of joining the revised Convention of Berne for many years, but have neglected to do so.
It is not astonishing, therefore, that President Wilson cannot influence them to follow him into the League of Nations under the Peace Treaty.
For the last paragraph of Mr. Putnam's letter—his ἀπολογία {apologia} for American authors and publishers—all authors in Great Britain are grateful. If British authors have not followed with appreciation the efforts of their brothers in the States, they should have done so. We gladly now pay tribute to the work of those who so long and earnestly, yet unsuccessfully, have struggled to bring the United States to join the ranks of other civilised nations.—Yours, etc.,
G. Herbert Thring.
March 11th.
[Perhaps Major Putnam will reply.—Editor.]