Several correspondents have written to ask us whether we propose to devote any attention to the economics of authorship, and two of them (persons whom we conceive to have a direct and immediate interest in the subject) make special reference to the question of American copyright. To all of them we can reply that, although economics in general, like politics in general, come within the sphere of our self-abnegation, we shall throw what light we can on the economics of authorship, just as we shall hold ourselves free to trespass on politics when politics touch art. American copyright, as a fact, we had already marked out as one of the matters to which we intend to return again and again until America puts her laws straight. The British copyright laws are now, so far as they affect the author, on a very satisfactory footing. The principal countries of the world have signed the Berne Convention, and even Russia, had there been no Revolution, would by this time have agreed that the works of British authors should be automatically copyrighted in Russia. The more widely the civilised custom spreads the more glaring becomes what, without offence, we may call the offence of America. There only—and it is the largest English-speaking and English-reading community in the world—is the British author defenceless, there only may he be robbed with impunity of the fruits of his labour.
Let us recapitulate the elements of the American copyright law as they at present stand. Copyright in America is defined by a law of 1909. That Act lays down that a book, to secure legal protection, must be manufactured in the United States of America; the stipulation was carried on from an earlier statute. A book published in the English language may obtain interim protection for one month from the date of publication if a copy is forwarded to an office in Washington; but at the end of the month protection lapses. Copyright is lost unless a book (or a newspaper contribution) has been "set up" in the States and issued there within a month of its publication in Great Britain.
Now we have no hesitation in describing the present copyright arrangements as between England and America as immoral and unjust. They do not greatly handicap authors of international reputation, so far as their new books are concerned. If—he will forgive us for using his name as an illustration—Mr. Rudyard Kipling has written a new book, he will have no difficulty whatever in getting an American publisher to put it into type in America and issue it at a date approximate to that of the English publication. But even the eminent and the "arrived" are put to some trouble and expense by the necessity of "securing copyright," and on those who are not so eminent the law presses very hardly indeed. There are famous English authors whose early books are not copyright in America; there are young English authors who have to go through the anguish of seeing American copyright expire whilst some American publisher is debating whether or not he shall take "sheets" of a book from England; and "first books" of any character published in England can virtually never be copyrighted in America. It may, and should, be granted that as a body American publishers are more just and generous than their laws. We know of many cases in which the English authors of non-copyright books have obtained from American publishers precisely the same royalties as they have obtained from their English publishers. We know also of cases—relatively few, we gladly admit—in which the works of English authors have been pirated by American editors and publishers without sanction, thanks, or payment. But the mere fact that in most instances American publishers are ashamed to take advantage of the law, and that in other instances they do the handsome thing in order to secure "favours to come," is no palliation of the law. It is a harsh and a selfish law; a law unworthy of a great nation, a nation which is second to none in its professions and in its intentions with regard to the welfare of humanity at large.
The state of the law is commonly ascribed to the typographical unions. "Protection for Printers": books should have no rights in America unless American typographers have been employed upon them. Beneath this argument lies the naked, brutal fact that at present, America having not yet produced the great universal literature that she is destined to produce, America imports much more from us than we do from her. If "sheets" were copyright, whenever sent, we should get the better of the exchange; we produce ten Masefields for one O. Henry, and England would print far more for America than America would for England. This may determine the printers' attitude; though even the printers might realise that a time might come when the boot would be on the other leg, and British publishers will be in a position to squeeze American authors to any extent, and British printers will insist on printing books which might more conveniently and economically be printed in America. But surely, in a matter like this, the law ought not to be dictated by the selfish and shortsighted conceptions of a trade. We have never met an English author who has had, or who has contemplated, relations with America who has not been bitterly contemptuous of the American attitude towards the copyright law. We have never spoken to an American author or publisher who has not admitted that it was a disgrace to America. Authors may be a small body, but they are as entitled to their rights as anybody else; these, also, are God's creatures. President Wilson himself, for all we know, may under the present regime have lost English copyright in his early works; and the irony of the law is that it presses most hardly on those who have still their fortunes to make, for the celebrated, or their agents, can successfully cope with it.
These lines will, as we are happy to know, meet the eyes of many Americans who write and many who do not. We appeal to them to agitate for a change in their law. That the American copyright law should be placed on precisely the same basis as the English copyright law we do not ask, and have no right to ask. But that English authors should automatically enjoy in the United States the same privileges as are enjoyed by native authors is a reasonable proposition. Cannot somebody move the Legislature?