“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.”
TENDENCIES OF COPYRIGHT AMENDERS.
That pretensions under Copyright are becoming so formidable as to demand very serious attention on the part of statesmen and of all who desire to maintain the integrity of our national inheritance of a world-wide, heartily-united empire, and imperial freedom from odious, inquisitorial, and impracticable restraints, especially such as might hinder intellectual and moral development, will be evident to any person who takes pains to study and follow out to their necessary consequences the provisions contained in the following transcripts from a Bill lately introduced by an ex-Lord Chancellor, “for Consolidating and Amending the Law of Copyright in Works of Fine Art:”
Fine Arts Copyright Consolidation and Amendment. [32 Vict.]
Design.—An original conception represented by the author thereof in any work of fine art.
Drawing or Painting.—Every original drawing or painting, made in any manner and material, and by any process.