The Chinese, it is said, do not recognise Copyright. What the effect is on their literature I know not. But their post-office and custom-house officers should, at any rate, rejoice that, unlike the establishments in enlightened Britain, they are not employed in the interests of private individuals as detectives of contraband literature.
I submit with some confidence a scheme I have sketched. It is one which I hope will at least prepare the way for this important national and international question receiving the earnest attention it merits.
SUGGESTIONS FOR THE AMENDMENT OF THE SYSTEM OF COPYRIGHT FOR BOOKS, BY MR. MACFIE.
(From the Leith Herald of — Jan.)
1. The period of exclusive privileges to continue as at present, unless any publisher demand that it shall be shortened, which he may do any time after the end of the first year, provided he intimates to the author or assignee of the author, or their agent, at the Stationers’ Hall, or other place duly appointed, that he intends to publish an edition at a lower price within a year, and also lodges there a specimen copy and a statement of the intended price.
2. On such new edition the intended publisher shall be liable to pay in advance [five] per cent. on the retail price of the book.
3. And there shall be impressed on the first sheet of each copy a distinctive stamp approved by the Stationers’ Hall, without which it shall be a penal offence to print or vend any copy.
4. Every publisher making such an intimation shall be bound to actually publish, according to his notice, unless the author or his assignee, within six months of his receiving intimation, shall lodge at the Stationers’ Hall a bond obliging himself to publish on his own account, an edition at least as good in quality, at a price no higher; such bond to bar any action under the provisions of Article 1.
5. No reprint to differ from the original edition, without the author’s consent, either in the way of abbreviation, enlargement, or alteration of the text.