#1.730. B7418.75 16 IS COPYRIGHT PERPETUAL? 1876, March 8. Gist of of Braton. (S. EC. 1851.) COPYRIGHT PERPETUAL? AN EXAMINATION OF THE By Eaton Sylvesiel Drone. WHEN Anne was Queen of England, Parliament passed an act "for the encouragement of learned men to compose and write useful books."1 It declared that an author should have the sole right of publishing his intellectual productions for a specified period, and gave a remedy against piracy. For generations before this statute, which became a law in 1710, authors had enjoyed a perpetual property in their works under the common law; for half a century after, the perpetuity of this property was undisturbed. In 1769 it received the solemn sanction of the Court of King's Bench.2 Five years later the judgment of this court was swept away by the House of Lords, who proclaimed, on an equal division of the judges, that the perpetuity of literary property had been destroyed by the statute of Anne, and that authors had no rights in their published works except under that act. This has been the law of England for a century. It was copied by the United States in 1790, and has since ruled Congress and the courts. It has been denounced as bad law by the ablest jurists of England and America; it has been defended by others. The former maintain that copyright is a natural right, guaranteed by the common law, and not abridged by statute; the latter argue that it is an artificial right, created and wholly regulated by the legislature. The conflict of opinion concerning the perpetuity of copyright presents four theories: First. That intellectual productions constitute a species of property founded in natural law, recognized by the common law, and neither lost by publication nor taken away by statute. Second. That an author has by common law the exclusive right to control his works before but not after publication. Third. That this right is not lost by publication, but is destroyed by the copyright statutes. 18 Anne, c. 19. 2 Millar v. Taylor, 4 Burr. 2303. 3 Donaldson v. Becket, 4 Burr. 2408. HARVARD LIBRARY |