ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

LITERARY PIRACY.

Letters on International Copy-right. By H. C. CAREY, author of "Principles of Political Economy," &c. Philadelphia: A. Hart. 1853.

WE

E have at last a formal, if not formidable treatise on anti-copy-right, by a writer who treats the subject in a candid and gentlemanly manner, and who, though he argues scientifically in favor of robbery, does it on philosophical principles, and in a benevolent spirit, and not in that sordid tone which has distinguished all the arguments that we have hitherto heard from the opponents of international copyright. The difference between Mr. Carey and the other gentlemen whose cause he espouses is, that while they seem to have been influenced by no better motive than that of personal aggrandizement, he is apparently a disinterested believer in the benevolence and justice of the measure which he advocates. He is, therefore, all the more dangerous, as an opponent, and the more entitled to consideration. Mr. Carey is a retired publisher, and the author of some remarkable essays on political economy; he is the antagonist of the Ricardo school of political philosophers, an advocate of high protective duties, and a fluent and forcible writer. We are very glad to meet him as an antagonist on the subject of copy-right, for he can make the most of his subject, and we are quite sure that no other writer will present it in a stronger light, or more happily illustrate his theory by the extent and variety of the facts which he has brought to bear upon the question. His pamphlet appears at a most opportune moment, too, when the subject of international copy-right has assumed an importance which it has never had before, from the circumstance of the administration having declared itself in favor of a total abolition of the small duty now imposed on printed books. Mr. Carey could hardly have had such an event in his mind, or the anticipation of it, and its too probable influence upon the interests of our native literature, or he would never have raised his voice, we imagine, on the side of the anti-copy-right advocates. The great bugbear in the eyes of Mr. Carey is centralization, and the fatal facility which a reduction of duties on printed books, even with the counteracting effect which an international copyright law would exert, in making London the metropolis of the United States, must

be plain enough to so shrewd a thinker as Mr. Carey. He endeavors to prove, and we think successfully, that the union of Scotland and Ireland with England has destroyed the national literature of those two countries, and transferred the producing power in literature which once manifested itself so strongly in Dublin and Edinburgh, to London.

"Seventy years after the date of the Union, Edinburgh was still a great literary capital, and could then offer to the world the names of numerous men, of whose reputation any country of the world might have been proud: Burns and McPherson; Robertson and Hume; Blair and Kames; Reid, Smith, and Stewart; Monboddo, Playfair, and Boswell; and numerous others, whose reputation has survived to the present day. Thirty-five years later, its press furnished the world with the works of Jeffrey and Brougham; Stewart, Brown, and Chalmers; Scott, Wilson, and Joanna Baillie; and with those of many others whose reputation was less widely spread, among whom were Galt, Hogg, Lockhart, and Miss Ferrier, the authoress of Marriage. The Edinburgh Review and Blackwood's Magazine then, to a great extent, represented Scottish men and Scottish modes of thought. Looking now on the same field of action, it is difficult, from this distance, to discover more than two Scottish authors, Alison and Sir William Hamilton, the latter all the more conspicuous and remarkable, as he now,' says the North British Review (Fob. 1853), 'stands so nearly alone in the ebb of literary activity in Scotland, which has been so apparent during this generation.' McCulloch and Macaulay were both, I believe, born in Scotland, but in all else they are English. Glasgow has recently presented the world with a new poet, in the person of Alexander Smith, but, unlike Ramsay and Burns, there is nothing Scottish about him beyond his place of birth. It is not,' says one of his reviewers, Scottish scenery, Scottish history, Scottish character, and Scottish social humor, that he represents or depicts. Nor is there," it continues, any trace in him of that feeling of intense nationality so common in Scottish writers. London,' as it adds, a green lane-in Kent, an English forest, an English manor-house, there are the scenes where the real business of the drama is transacted.'*

"The Edinburgh Review has become to all intents and purposes an English journal, and Blackwood has lost all those characteristics by which it was in former times distinguished from the magazines published south of the Tweed.

"Secing these facts, we can scarcely fail to agree with the review already quoted, in the admission that there are 'probably fewer leading individual thinkers and literary guides in Scotland at present, than at any other period of its history since the early part of the last century,' since the day when Scotland itself lost its individuality. The same journal informs us that there is now scarcely an instance of a Scotchman holding a learned position in any other country," and farther says, that 'the small number of names of literary Scotchmen known throughout Europe for eminence in literature and science is of itself sufficient

North British Review, Aug. 1853.

to show to how great an extent the present race of Scotchmen have lost the position which their ancestors held in the world of letters."*

"The London Leader tells its readers that 'England is a power made up of conquests over nationalities; and it is right. The nationality of Scotland has disappeared; and, however much it may annoy our Scottish friends to have the energetic Celt sunk in the slow and unimpressible' Saxon, such is the tendency of English centralization, every where destructive of that national feeling which is essential to progress in civilization.

"If we look to Ireland, we find a similar state of things. Seventy years since, that country was able to insist upon and to establish its claim for an independent government, and, by aid of the measures then adopted, was rapidly advancing. From that period to the close of the century, the demand for books for Ireland was so great as to warrant the republication of a large portion of those produced in England. The kingdom of Ireland of that day gave to the world such men as Burke and Grattan, Moore and Edgeworth, Curran, Sheridan, and Wellington. Centralization, however, demanded that Ireland should become a province of England, and from that time farines and pestilences have been of frequent occurrence, and the whole population is now being expelled to make room for the 'slow and unimpressible' Saxon race. Under these circumstances, it is matter of small surprise that Ireland not only produces no books, but that she furnishes no market for those produced by others. Half a century of international copy-right has almost annihilated both the producers and the consumers of books.

"Passing towards England, we may for a moment look to Wales, and then, if we desire to find the effects of centralization and its consequent absenteeism, in neglected schools, ignorant teachers, decaying and decayed churches, and drunken clergymen with immoral flocks, our object will be accomplished by studying the pages of the Edinburgh Review. such a state of things as is there described there can be little tendency to the development of intellect, and little of either ability or inclination to reward the authors of books. In my next, I will look to England herself."

In

Precisely such an effect as has been produced in Dublin and Edinburgh Mr. Carey predicts for this country, in the event of the passage of an international copy-right law which shall give to Englishmen the right to control their publications in this country; an opinion in which we wholly differ from him; but his argument becomes fearfully powerful, and the state of things he anticipates, an absolute certainty in the absence of all duties and all copy-right. Nothing can save the literary interests of this country, and all the national interests connected with them, from utter destruction, but the passage of an international copy-right law, if the duties are to be abolished on foreign books, and there seems but little doubt that such will be the case. We may then give ourselves up as literary dependents, and fall into the ranks with Edinburgh and Dublin, and

acknowledge Paternoster Row to be our common intellectual centre. England now furnishes the greater part of our mental food, and it will then furnish the whole, excepting such as can be gathered from the daily newspaper.

But Mr. Carey is so entirely mastered by his idea of centralization, and sees so clearly the whole world whirling in a maelstrom with London for its centre, that he can hardly see in any of the movements of social policy any thing else. This idea neutralizes itself by making itself self-destructive, not only does it swallow up all its surMr. roundings, but it swallows itself. Carey proves that centralization is as destructive to its own centre as to the objects within its influence.

"Centralization enables Mr. Dickens to obtain vast sums by advertising the works of the poor authors by whom he is surrounded, most of whom are not only badly paid, but insolently treated, while even of those whose names and whose works are well known abroad many gladly become recipients of the public charity. In the zenith of her reputation, Lady Charlotte Bury received, as I am informed, but £200 ($960) for the absolute copy-right of works that sold for $7 50. Lady Blessington, celebrated as she was, had but from three to four hundred pounds; and neither Marryat nor Bulwer ever received, as I believe, the selling price of a thousand copies of their books as compensation for the copy-right. Such being the facts in regard to well-known authors, some idea may be formed in relation to the compensation of those who are obscure. The whole tendency of the 'cheap labor' system, so generally approved by English writers, is to destroy the value of literary labor by increasing the number of persons who must look to the pen for the means of support, and by diminishing the market for its products. What has been the effect of the system will now be shown by placing before you a list of the names of all the existing British authors whose reputation can be regarded as of any wide extent, as follows:Tennyson, Thackeray, Carlyle, Bulwer, Dickens, Alison,

Grote, McCulloch, Macaulay, Hamilton, J. S. Mill, Farraday. "This list is very small as compared with that presented in the same field five-and-thirty years since, and its difference in weight is still greater in sumber. Scott, the novelist and poet, may certainly be regarded as the counterpoise of much more than any one of the writers of fiction in this list. Byron, Moore, Rogers, and Campbell enjoyed a degree of reputation far exceeding that of Tennyson. Wellington, the his torian of his own campaigns, would much outweigh any of the historians. Malthus and Ricardo were founders of a school that has greatly influenced the policy of the world, whereas McCulloch and Mill are but disciples in that school. Dalton, Davy, and Wollaston will probably occupy a larger space in the history of science than Sir Michael Farraday, large even as may be that assigned to him.

"Extraordinary as is the existence of such a state o things in a country claiming so much to abound in wealth, it is yet more extraordinary that we look around in vain to see who are to replace even these

North British Review, May, 1853. + See Blackwood's Magazine, Sept. 1853, art. "Scotland since the Union." April, 1853, art. "The Church in the Mountains." This I had from Capt. Marryat himself. VOL. III.-7

when age or death shall withdraw them from the literary world. Of all here named, Mr. Thackeray is the only one that has risen to reputation in the last ten years, and he is no longer young; and even he seeks abroad that reward for his efforts which is denied to him by the cheap labor' system at home. Of the others, nearly, if not quite all, have been for thirty years before the world, and, in the natural course of things, some of them must disappear from the stage of authorship, if not of life. If we seek their successors among the writers for the weekly or montly journals, we shall certainly fail to find them. Looking to the Reviews, we find ourselves forced to agree with the English journalist who informs his readers that it is said, and with apparent justice, that the quarterlies are not as good as they were. From year to year they have less the appearance of being the production of men who looked to any thing beyond mere pecuniary compensation for their labor. In reading them, we find ourselves compelled to agree with the reviewer, who regrets to see that the centralization which is hastening the decline of the Scottish universities is tending to cause the mind of the whole youth of Scotland to be

Cast in the mould of English universities, institutions which, from their very completeness, exercise on second-rate minds an influence unfavorable to originality and power of thought.'-North British Review, May 1853.

"Their pupils are, as he says, struck with one mental die,' than which nothing can be less favorable to literary or scientific development."

The

Like most men who ride a hobby Mr. Carey makes his nag centralization carry too heavy a load, and it breaks down under the weight of argument he imposes upon it. Where there is free intercourse between nations, centralization becomes a necessity, and, not only a necessity, but a blessing; there is but one way to prevent it, and that is by non-intercourse. centralizing influences of England, which are felt so balefully all over India, have not yet been perceived by the Japanese; but the time is near at hand when they too will begin to understand that they are in the circle of a maelstrom of which Jeddo is not the centre. It remains for us United Statesers to determine whether this great absorbing centre shall be on this side of the Atlantic or the other, whether it shall be London, Paris, New-York, St. Louis or San Francisco. At present it is divided between London and Paris. London is the intellectual and financial centre, and Paris is the centre of art and fashion. There is no reason why NewYork, or some other American city, should not become the great centre of finance, fashion, literature and art, but a good many why it should. And, in fact, such a destiny can only be delayed, and not prevented by unwise legislation. The superiority of mind over matter will hardly be questioned, and wherever the mind of the world centres itself, there all the material interests are sure to follow. We

have, thus far, in spite of our splendid opportunities, prevented the United States from becoming the intellectual centre of the universe, by perversely violating the great law of national and individual prosperity, which gives to every producer the right to control the productions of his own labor. We deny to the foreigner the right of property on our own soil, in his intellectual productions, whereby we inflict as great an injury on our own literary producers, as we should upon our manufacturers of calicoes, if we permitted an indiscriminate robbery of foreign manufactured goods of the same kind. The cases are precisely analogous. But, hitherto the full effects of this evil have not been felt, because the duty on foreign books has, to a certain extent, though a very limited one, acted as a protection to the native literary producer. But this small protection is now about to be destroyed, and the ruin of the literary interests of the nation must inevitably follow unless we have the counteracting effects of copyright to foreigners.

Mr. Carey very consistently attacks the principle of copy-right in all its bearings: he not only argues against international copy-right, but all copy-right; and if some of his arguments are not very forcible, we are bound to concede to them the merit of great originality. We must also give him the praise of discarding that mean and despicable argument against copy-right, which many of its opponents have so industriously exploited, that acting justly would prove too costly. These sentiments are most creditable to Mr. Carey, although we regret to notice that he insensibly falls into the line of argument which he denounces in another part of his book.

"Evil may not be done that good may come of it, nor may we steal an author's brains that our people may be cheaply taught. To admit that the end justifies the means, would be to adopt the line of argument so often used by English speakers, in and out of Parliament, when they defend the poisoning of the Chinese people by means of opium introduced in defiance of their government, because it furnishes revenue to India; or that which teaches that Canada should be retained as a British colony, because of the facility it affords for the violation of our laws; or that which would have us regard smugglers, in general, as the great reformers of the age. We stand in need of no such morality as this. We can afford to pay for what we want; but, even were it otherwise, our motto here, and every where, should be the old French one: "Fais ce que doy, advienne que pourra "-Act justly, and leave the result to Providence. Before acting, however, wo Unless should determine on which side justice lies.

I am greatly in error, it is not on the side of international copy-right."

Mr. Carev states his argument against

copy-right after the following fashion, which is not original with him, except in the manner of expressing it.

For what then is copy-right given? For the clothing in which the body is produced to the world. Examine Mr. Macaulay's History of England, and you will find that the body is composed of what is common property. Not only have the facts been recorded by others, but the ideas, too, are derived from the works of men who have labored for the world withoat receiving, and frequently without the expectation of receiving, any pecuniary compensation for their labors. Mr. Macaulay has read much and carefully, and he has thus been enabled to acquire great skill in arranging and clothing his facts; but the readers of his books will find in them no contribution to positive knowledge. The works of men who make contributions of that kind are necessarily controversial and distasteful to the reader; for which reason they find few realers, and never pay their authors. Turn, now, to our own authors, Prescott and Bancroft, who have furnished us with historical works of so great excellence, and you will find a state of things precisely similar.

They have taken a large quantity of materials out of the common stock, in which you, and I, and all of us have an interest; and those materials they have so reclothed as to render them attractive of purchasers; but this is all they have done. Look to Mr. Webster's works, and you will find it the same. He was a great reader. He studied the Constitution carefully, with a view to understand what where the views of its authors, and those views he reproduced in a different and more attractive clothing, and there his work ended. He never pretended, as I think, to furnish the world with any new ideas; and, if he had done so, he could have claimed no property in them. Few now read the heavy volumes containing the speeches of Fox and Pitt. They did nothing but reproduce ideas that were common property, in such clothing as answered the purposes of the moment. Sir Robert Peel did the same. The world would now be just as wise had he never lived, for he made no contribution to the general stock of knowledge. The great work of Chancellor Kent is, to use the words of Judge Story, but a new combination and arrangement of old materials, in which the skill and judgment of the author in the selection and exposition, and accurate use of the materials, constitute the basis of his reputation, as well as of his copy-right. The world at large is the owner of all the facts that have been collected, and of all the ideas that have been deduced from them, and its right in them is precisely the same that the planter has in the bale of cotton that has been raised on his plantation; and the course of proceeding of both has, thus far, been precisely similar; whence I am induced to infer that, in both eases, right has been done. When the planter hands his cotton to the spinner and the weaver, he does not say, Take this and couvert it into cloth, and keep the cloth; but he does say, 'Spin and weave this cotton, and for so doing you shall have such interest in the cloth as will give you a fair compensation for your labor and skill, but, when that shall have been paid, the cloth will be mine.' This latter is precisely what society, the owner of facts and ideas, says to the author: Take these raw materials that have been collected, put them together, and clothe them after your own fashion, and for a given time we will agree that nobody else shall present them in the same dress. During that time you may exhibit them for your own profit, but at the end of that period the clothing will become common property, as the body now is. It is to the contributions of your predecessors to our

common stock that you are indebted for the power to make your book, and we require you, in your turn, to contribute towards the augmentation of the stock that is to be used by your successors.' This is justice, and to grant more than this would be injustice. "Let us turn now, for a moment, to the producers of works of fiction. Sir Walter Scott had carefully studied Scottish and border history, and thus had filled his mind with facts preserved, and ideas produced by others, which he reproduced in a different form. He made no contribution to knowledge. So, too, with our own very successful Washington Irving. He drew largely upon the common stock of ideas, and dressed them up in a new, and what has proved to be a most attractive form. So, again, with Mr. Dickens. Read his Bleak House, and you will find that he has been a most careful observer of men and things, and has thereby been enabled to collect a great number of facts that he has dressed up in different forms, but that is all he has done. He is in the condition of a man who had entered a large garden, and collected a variety of the most beautiful flowers growing therein, of which he had made a fine bouquet, The owner of the garden would naturally say to him: "The flowers are mine, but the arrangement is yours. You cannot keep the bouquet, but you may smell it or show it for your own profit, for an hour or two, but then it must come to me. If you prefer it, I am willing to pay you for your services, giving you a fair compensation for your time and taste.' This is exactly what society says to Mr. Dickens, who makes such beautiful literary bouquets. What is right in the individual, cannot be wrong in the mass of individuals of which society is composed. Nevertheless, the author objects to this, insisting that he is owner of the bouquet itself, although he has paid no wages to the man who raised the flowers. Were he asked to do so, he would, as I will show in another letter, regard it as leading to great injustice.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

or

The error of Mr. Carey is in supposing that the copy-right is granted for the ideas and facts contained in a book, instead of the clothing," as he calls it, in which they are embodied. No book contains any thing essential to the welfare of mankind, which any man may not use for his own benefit. Any body may collate every essential fact contained in "Bancroft's History "Kent's Commentaries," make a book of them, using his own style of expression, and obtain a copy-right for them. The author of a book enjoys no monopoly, such as the owner of a field of wheat does; every body may use it, profit by it, improve upon it, and reproduce it in another shape in spite of him. But the owner of the wheat retains for ever and to all time, absolute control and monopoly over his property. Mr. Carey says that the authors of books do nothing more than make use of ideas which are the common property of mankind, and therefore they are not entitled to ownership in the form in which they present them to the world. But, it is the form only which they claim the right of property in, and, unless that right be granted to them, the ideas themselves, and the

facts of history will never be collected together in a manner available to the world. If you kill the goose, it will lay no more golden eggs; and, if you take from the author the means of living by his labor, his labor must cease, and the tribe of authors must become extinct.

Another of Mr. Carey's arguments against the right of an author to his own productions is, we believe, original with himself; at least we have never seen it urged in the copy-right controversy. Because Leibnitz, Descartes, Newton, Humboldt, and Bowditch were not enriched by their beneficent scientific labors, he would deny the right of such triflers as Irving, Dickens, Scott, and Cooper to the remuneration for their writings which the world has been so happy to make them in return for the pleasure which they have afforded. Mr. Carey insists that the agriculturist shall not be paid for his pears and pomegranates, because another agriculturist has failed to make a fortune out of a potato-field. The force of this reasoning we have not been able to appreciate. But, Mr. Carey shall himself state his own case:

"The whole tendency of the existing system is to give the largest reward to those whose labors are lightest, and the smallest to those whose labors are most severe; and every extension of it must necessarily look in that direction. The Mysteries of Paris were a fortune to Eugene Sue, and Uncle Tom's Cabin has been one to Mrs. Stowe. Byron had 2,000 guineas for a volume of Childe Harold, and Moore 8,000 for his Lalla Rookh; and yet a single year should have more than sufficed for the production of any one of them. Under a system of international copy-right, Dumas, already so largely paid, would be protected, whereas Thierry, who sacrificed his sight to the gratification of his thirst for knowledge, would not. Humboldt, the philosopher par excellence of the age, would not, because he furnishes his readers with things, and not with words alone. Of the books that record his observations on this continent, but a part has, I believe, been translated into English, and of these but a small portion has been published in this country, although to be had without claim for copyright. In England their sale has been small, and can have done little more than pay the cost of translation and publication. Had it been required to pay for the privilege of translation, but a small part of even those which have been translated would probably have ever seen the light in any but the language of the author. This great man inherited a handsome property, which he devoted to the advancement of science, and what has been his pecuniary reward may be seen in the following statement, derived from an address recently delivered in New-York:

"There are now living in Europe two very distinguished men, barons, both very eminent in their line, both known to the whole civilized world; one is Baron Rothschild, and the other Baron Humboldt; one distinguished for the accumulation of wealth, the other for the accumulation of knowledge. What are the possessions of the philosopher? Why, sir, I heard a gentleman whom I have seen here this afternoon, say that, on a recent visit to Europe, be paid his re

spects to that distinguished philosopher, and was admitted to an audience. He found him, at the age of 84 years, fresh and vigorous, in a small room, nicely sanded, with a large deal table uncovered in the midst of that room, containing his books and writing apparatus. Adjoining this, was a small bed-room, in which he slept. Here this eminent philosopher received a visitor from the United States. He conversed with him; he spoke of his works. My works,' said he, you will find in the adjoining library, but I am too poor to own a copy of them. I have not the means to buy a full copy of my own works.'"

"After having furnished to the gentlemen who produce books more of the material of which books are composed than has ever been furnished by any other man, this illustrious man finds himself, at the close of life, altogether dependent on the bounty of the Prussian government, which allows him, as I heard, less than five hundred dollars a year. In what manner, now, would Humboldt be benefited by international copy-right? I know of none; but it is very plain to see that Dumas, Victor Hugo, and George Sand, might derive from it a large revenue. In confirmation of this view, I would ask you to review the names of the persons who urge most anxiously the change of system that is now proposed, and see if you can find in it the name of a single man who has done any thing to extend the domain of knowledge. I think you will not. Next look, and see if you do not find in it the names of those who furnish the world with new forms of old ideas, and are largely paid for so doing. The most active advocate of international copy-right is Mr. Dickens, who is said to realize $50,000 per annum for the sale of works whose composition is little more than amusement for his leisure hours. In this country, the only attempt that has yet been made to restrict the right of translatiou is in a suit now before the courts, for compensation for the privilege of converting into German a work that has yielded the largest compensation that the world has yet known for the same quantity of literary labor.

We are constantly told that regard to the interests of science requires that we should protect and enlarge the rights of authors; but does science make any such claim for herself? I doubt it. Men who make additions to science know well that they have, and can have, no rights whatever. Cuvier died very poor, and all the copy-right that could have been given to him or Humboldt would not have enriched either of them. Laplace knew well that his great work could yield him nothing. Our own Bowditch translated it as a labor of love, and left by his will the means required for its publication. The gentlemen who advocate the interests of science are literary men, who use the facts and ideas furnished by scientific men, paying nothing for their use. Now, literature is a most honorable profession, and the gentlemen engaged in it are entitled not only to the respect and consideration of their fellow-men, but also to the protection of the law; but in granting it, the legislator is bound to recollect, that justice to the men who furnish the raw materials of the books, and justice to the community that owns those raw materials, require that protection shall not, either in point of space or time, be greater than is required for giving the producer of books a full and fair compensation for his labor."

We may as well remark, en passant, that the absurd story about Humboldt is all trash; his works intended for popular reading have been very popular, and he has reaped great profits from them, and he is about the most independent author

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »