Re: Re: Australia/US/FTA copyright provisions: FreeTrade at a Price

but what about the case a few years later, and before the US constitution was ratified in England that brought about 7 years as a still too long compromise.

On Tue, 18 Nov 2003, Bernard Katz wrote:

> Much of Bradley J Brown's contentions have been challenged if not answered
> outright by subsequent correspndents. However, one aspect of copyright has
> not yet been aired. Copyright as we know it is a statutory law, as opposed
> to what used to be in the old English common law. Another comment pointed
> out: it is a monopoly granted under specified circumstances. This has been
> recognized and understood by authors since the time of Queen Anne when the
> first copyright statute was passed in the English-speaking world. During
> the debate that followed the Law Lords' 1774 decision settling the matter
> of the statute over-riding the old common law (including abrogating the
> perpetual "right of copie" for published works), Samuel Johnson stated the
> case very succinctly. In a 1774 letter to William Strahan, a bookseller
> who knew Johnson's strong interest in author's rights, Johnson wrote:
>
> "Sir
> I will tell you in a few words, what is, in my opinion, the most
> desireable state of Copyright or Literary property.
> The Authour has a natural and peculiar right to the profits of his own
> work. But as every Man who claims the protection of Society, must purchase
> it by resigning some part of his natural right, the authour must recede
> from so much of his claim, as shall be deemed injurious or inconvenient to
> Society.
> It is inconvenient to Society that an useful book shall become perpetual
> and exclusive property. The judgement of the Lords was therefore legally
> and politically right.
> But the Authours enjoyment of his natural right might without any
> inconvenience be protracted beyond the term settles by the statute. And it
> is, I think, to be desired...
>
> [Johnson then set out what he believed to be the terms that the statute
> ought to provide (but which it did not), including that the author should
> have "during his life the sole right of printing and selling his work", so
> that the book would be improved continually, to the benefit of society. He
> advocated limited terms for an author "to alienate his right" (ie. assign
> it to a publisher) of 14 and then 7 years (repeated), in between which
> rights would revert back to the author. He gives reasons for those terms,
> mainly to allow time for the value of a work to become known and then to
> give an inducement for the author "to polish and improve his work" and tp
> be able to set "an assignable price" for it. His final term follows.]
>
> 4 That after the Authours death his work should continue an exclusive
> property capable of bequest and inheritance, and of conveyance by gift or
> sale for thirty years.
> By these regulations a book may continue the property of the authour or
> of those who claim from him [for] about fifty years, a term sufficient to
> reward the writer without any loss to the publick. In fifty years far the
> greater number of books are forgotten and annihilated, and it is for the
> advantage of learning that those which fifty years have not destroyed
> should become bona comunia, to be used by every scholar as he thinks
> best...
>
> [He then gives some examples of why and how this is important, and ends by
> noting that being able to make use of the text in a new work is necessary]
>
> "and the text will frequently be refused while it is any man's property.
> I am Sir Your humble servant,
> Sam: Johnson"
> _The Letters of Samuel Johnson_, collected and edited by R.W. Chapman
> (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1952), V.1, p. 398-9.
>
> I couldn't have said it better myself, and it is interesting to note how
> much of what S.J. advocated has come to pass in the succeeding 200 years!
> Cheers,
> Bernard Katz, former Head, Special Collections and Library Development
> McLaughlin Library, University of Guelph
> and Chair, Ontario Library Association Copyright Task Force
>
>
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Received on Fri Nov 21 2003 - 00:30:30 GMT