Chapter III: Letter II

Let us suppose, now, that you should move, in the Senate, a resolution looking to the establishment of the exclusive right of making known the facts, or ideas, that might be brought to light, and see what would be the effect. You would, as I think, find yourself at once surrounded by the gentlemen who dress up those facts and ideas, and issue them in the form of books. The geographer would say to you: "My dear sir, this will never do. Look at my book, and you will see that it is drawn altogether from the works of others, many of whom have sunk their fortunes, while others have lost their lives, in pursuit of the knowledge that I so cheaply give the world. You will find there the essence of the works of Humboldt, and of Wilkes. All of Franklin's discoveries are there, and I am now waiting only for the appearance of McClure's voyage in the Arctic regions to give a new edition of my book. Reflect, I beseech you, upon what you are about to do. Very few persons have leisure to read, or means to pay for the books of these travellers. A few hundred copies are sufficient to satisfy the demand, and then their works die out. Of mine, on the contrary, the sale is ten, fifteen, or twenty thousand annually, and thus is knowledge disseminated throughout the world, enabling the men who furnish me with facts to reap _a rich harvest of never dying fame_. Grant them a copyright to the new ideas they may supply to the world, and at once you put a stop to the production of such books as mine, to my great injury and to the loss of mankind at large. Facts and ideas are common property, and their owners, the public, have a right to use them as they will."

The historian would say: "Mr. Senator, if you persist in this course, you will never again see histories like mine. Here are hundreds of people scattered over the country, industriously engaged in disinterring facts relating to our early history. They are enthusiasts, and many of them are very poor. Some of them contrive to publish, in the form of books, the results of their researches, while others give them to the newspapers, or to the historical societies, and thus they are enabled to come before the world. Few people buy such things, and it not unfrequently happens that men who have spent their lives in the collection of important facts, waste much of their small means in giving them to an ungrateful nation. Nevertheless, they have their reward in the consciousness that they are thus enabling others to furnish the world with accurate histories of their country. I find them of infinite use. They are my hewers of wood and drawers of water, and they never look for payment for their labor. Deprive me of their services, and I shall be obliged to abandon the production of books, and return to the labors of my profession--and they will be deprived of fame, while the public will be deprived of knowledge."

The medical writer would say: "Mr. Senator, should you succeed in carrying out the idea with which you have commenced, you will, I fear, be the cause of great injury to our profession, and probably of great loss of life, for you will thereby arrest the dissemination of knowledge. We have, here and abroad, thousands of industrious and thoughtful men, more intent upon doing good than upon pecuniary profit, who give themselves to the study of particular diseases, furnishing the results to our journals, and not unfrequently publishing monographs of the highest value. The sale of these is always small, and their publication not unfrequently makes heavy drafts on the small means of their authors. Such men are of infinite use to me, for it is by aid of their most valuable labors that I have found myself enabled to prepare the numerous and popular works that I have given to the world. Look at them. There are several volumes of each, of which I sell thousands annually, to my great profit. Deprive me of the power to avail myself of the brains of the working men of the profession and my books will soon cease to be of any value, and I shall lose the large income now realized from them, while the public will suffer in their health by reason of the increased difficulty of disseminating information."

The professor would ask you to look at his lectures and satisfy yourself that they contained no single idea that had originated with himself. "How," he would ask, "could these valuable lectures have been produced, had I been deprived of the power to avail myself of the facts collected by the working-men, and the principles deduced from them by the thinkers of the world? I have no leisure to collect facts or analyze them. For many years past, these lectures have yielded me a large income, and so will they continue to do, provided I be allowed to do in future as in time past I have done, appropriate to my own use all the new facts and new ideas I meet with, crediting their authors or not as I find it best to suit my purpose. Abandon your idea, my dear sir; it cannot be carried out. The men who work, and the men who think, must content themselves with fame, and be thankful if the men who write books and deliver lectures do not appropriate to themselves the entire credit of the facts they use, and the ideas they borrow."

The teacher of natural science would say: "My friend, have you reflected on what you are about to do? Look at our collections, and see how they have been enlarged within the last half century. Asia and Africa, and the islands of the Southern Ocean, have been traversed by indefatigable men who, at the hazard of life, and often at the cost of fortune, have quadrupled our knowledge of vegetable and animal life. Such men do not ask for compensation of any kind. They are willing to work for nothing. Why, then, not let them? Look at the vast contributions to geological knowledge that have been made throughout the Union by men who were content with a bare support, and glad to have the results of their labors published, as they have been, at the public cost. Such men ask no copyright. When they publish, it is almost always at a loss. Wilson lived and died poor. So did Audubon, to whose labors we are indebted for so much ornithological knowledge. Morton expended a large sum in the preparation and publication of his work on crania. Agassiz did the same with his great work on fishes. Cuvier had nothing but fame to bequeath to his family. Lamarck's great work on the _invertebratae_ sold so slowly that very many years elapsed before the edition was exhausted; but he would have found his reward had he lived to see his ideas appropriated without acknowledgment, and reclothed by the author of 'Vestiges of Creation,' of which the sale has been so large. This, my friend, is the use for which such men as Lamarck and Cuvier were intended. They collect and classify the facts, and we popularize them to our own profit. Look at my works and see, bulky as they are, how many editions have been printed, and think how profitable they must have been to the publisher and myself. Look further, and see how numerous are the books to which my labors have indirectly given birth. See the many school-books in relation to botany and other departments of natural science, the authors of which know little of what they undertake to teach, except what they have drawn from me and others like myself. Again, see how numerous are the 'Flora's Emblems,' and the 'Garlands of Flowers,' and the 'Flora's Dictionaries,' and how large is their sale-- and how large must be the profits of those engaged in their production. To recognize in such men as Cuvier and Lamarck the existence of any right to either their facts or their deductions would be an act of great injustice towards the race of literary men, while most inexpedient as regards the world at large, now so cheaply supplied with knowledge. As regards the question of international copyright now before the Senate, my views are different. Several of my books have been published abroad, and my publisher here tells me, that to prevent the republication of others he is obliged to supply them cheaply for foreign markets, and thus am I deprived of a fair and just reward for my labors. Copyright should be universal and eternal, and such, I am persuaded, will be the result at which you will arrive when you shall have thoroughly studied the subject."

Having studied it, and having given full consideration to the views that they and others had presented, your answer would probably be to the following effect: "It is clear, gentlemen, from your own showing, that there are two distinct classes of persons engaged in the production of books--the men who furnish the body, and those who dress it up for production before the world. The first class are generally poor, and likely to continue so. They labor without any view to pecuniary advantage. They are, too, very generally helpless. Animated to their work solely by a desire to penetrate into the secrets of nature the character of their minds unfits them for mixing in a money-getting world, while you are always in that world, ready to enforce your claims to its consideration. As a consequence of this, they are rarely allowed even the credit that is due to them. Their discoveries become at once common property, to be used by men like yourselves, and for your own individual profit. We have here among ourselves a gentleman who has given to astronomy a new and highly important law essential to the perfection of the science, the discovery of which has cost him the labor of a life, as a consequence of which he is poor and likely so to remain. Important as was his discovery, his name is already so completely forgotten that there is probably not a single one among you that can now recall it, and yet his law figures in all the recent books. Is this right? Has _he_ no claim to consideration?"

"In answer, you will say, that 'to admit the existence of any such rights is not only impossible, but _inexpedient_, even were it possible. Knowledge advances by slow and almost imperceptible steps, and each is but the precursor of a new and more important one. Were each discoverer of a new truth to be authorized to monopolize the teaching of it millions of men, to whom, by our aid, it is communicated, would remain in ignorance of it, and thus would farther advance be prevented. In all times past, such truths have been regarded as common property; and so,' you will add, 'they must continue to be regarded. Rely upon it, the best interests of society require that such shall continue to be the case, however great the apparent injustice to the discoverer.'

"Here, you will observe, you waive altogether the question of right which you so strongly enforce in regard to yourselves. It may be that you have reason; but if so, how do you yourselves stand in your relations with the great mass of human beings whose right to this common property is equal with your own? For thousands of years working men, collectors of facts and philosophers, have been contributing to the common stock, and the treasure accumulated is now enormously great; and yet the mass of mankind remain still ignorant, and are poor, depraved, and wretched, because ignorant. Under such circumstances, justice would seem to require of the legislator that he should sanction no measure tending to throw unnecessary difficulty in the way of the dissemination of knowledge. To do so, would be to deprive the many of the power to profit by their interest in the common property. To do so, would be to deprive the men who have contributed to the accumulation of this treasure of even the reward to which, as you admit, they justly may make a claim. If they are to be satisfied with fame, we must do nothing tending to limit the dissemination of their ideas, because to do so would be to limit their power to acquire fame. If they are to be satisfied with the idea of doing good to their fellow-men, we must avoid every thing tending to limit the knowledge of their discoveries, because to do so would be to deprive them of much of their small reward. The state of the matter is, as I conceive, as follows: On one side of you stand the contributors to the vast treasure of knowledge that mankind has accumulated, and is accumulating--men who have, in general, labored without fee or reward; on the other side of you stand the owners of this vast treasure, desirous to have it fashioned in a manner to suit their various tastes and powers, that all may be enabled to profit by its possession. Between them stand yourselves, middlemen between the producers and the consumers. It is your province to combine the facts and ideas, as does the manufacturer when he takes the raw materials of cloth, and, by the aid of the skill of numerous working men, past and present, elaborates them into the beautiful forms that so much gratify our eyes in passing through the Crystal Palace. For this service you are to be paid; but to enable you to receive payment you need the aid of the legislator, as the common law grants no more copyright for the form in which ideas are expressed than for the ideas themselves. In granting this aid he is required to see that, while he secures that you have justice, he does no injustice to the men who produce the raw material of your books, nor to the community whose common property it is. In granting it, he is bound to use his efforts to attain the knowledge needed for enabling him to do justice to all parties, and not to you alone. The laws which elsewhere govern the distribution of the proceeds of labor, must apply in your case with equal force. Looking at them, we see that, with the growth of population and of wealth, there is everywhere a tendency to diminution in the proportion of the product that is allowed to the men who stand between the producer and the consumer. In new settlements, trade is small and the shopkeeper requires large profits to enable him to live; and, while the consumer pays a high price, the producer is compelled to be content with a low one. In new settlements, the miller takes a large toll for the conversion of corn into flour, and the spinner and weaver take a large portion of the wool as their reward for converting the balance into cloth. Nevertheless, the shopkeeper, the miller, the spinner, and the weaver are poor, because trade is small. As wealth and population grow, we find the shopkeeper gradually reducing his charge, until from fifty it falls to five per cent.; the miller reducing his, until he finds that he can afford to give all the flour that is yielded by the corn, retaining for himself the bran alone; and the spinner and weaver contenting himself with a constantly diminishing proportion of the wool; and now it is that we find shopkeepers, millers, and manufacturers grow rich, while consumers are cheaply supplied because of the vast increase of trade. In your case, however, the course of proceeding has been altogether different. Half a century since, when our people were but four millions in number, and were poor and scattered, gentlemen like you were secured in the monopoly of their works for fourteen years, with a power of renewal for a similar term. Twenty years since, when the population had almost tripled, and their wealth had sixfold increased, and when the facilities of distribution had vastly grown, the term was fixed at twenty-eight years, with renewal to widow or children for fourteen years more. At the present moment, you are secured in a monopoly for forty-two years, among a population of twenty-six millions of people, certain, at the close of twenty years more, to be fifty millions and likely, at the close of another half century, to be a hundred millions, and with facilities, for the disposal of your products, growing at a rate unequaled in the world. With this vast increase of market, and increase of power over that market, the consumer should be supplied more cheaply than in former times; yet such is not the case. The novels of Mrs. Rowson and Charles B. Brown, and the historical works of Dr. Ramsay, persons who then stood in the first rank of authors, sold as cheaply as do now the works of Fanny Fern, the 'Reveries' of Ik Marvel, or the history of Mr. Bancroft; and yet, in the period that has since elapsed, the cost of publication has fallen probably twenty-five per cent. We have here an inversion of the usual order of things, and it is with these facts before us that you claim to have your monopoly extended over another thirty millions of people; in consideration of which, our people are to grant to the authors of foreign countries a monopoly of the privilege of supplying them with books produced abroad. This application strikes me as unwise. It tends to produce inquiry, and that will, probably, in its turn, lead rather to a reduction than an extension of your privileges. Can it be supposed that when, but a few years hence, our population shall have attained a height of fifty millions, with a demand for books probably ten times greater than at present, the community will be willing to continue to you a monopoly, during forty-two years, of the right of presenting a body that is common property, as compensation for putting it in a new suit of clothing? I doubt it much, and would advise you, for your own good, to be content with what you have. Aesop tells us that the dog lost his piece of meat in the attempt to seize a shadow, and such may prove to be the case on this occasion. So, too, may it be with the owners of patents. The discoverers of principles receive nothing, but those who apply them enjoy a monopoly created by law for their use. Everybody uses chloroform, but nobody pays its discoverer. The man who taught us how to convert India rubber into clothing has not been allowed even fame, while our courts are incessantly occupied with the men who make the clothing. Patentees and producers of books are incessantly pressing upon Congress with claims for enlargement of their privileges, and are thus producing the effect of inducing an inquiry into the validity of their claim to what they now enjoy. Be content, my friends; do not risk the loss of a part of what you have in the effort to obtain more."

The question is often asked: Why should a man not have the same claim to the perpetual enjoyment of his book that his neighbor has in regard to the house he has built? The answer is, that the rights of the parties are entirely different. The man who builds a house quarries the stone and makes the bricks of which it is composed, or he pays another for doing it for him. When finished, his house is all, materials and workmanship, his own. The man who makes a book uses the common property of mankind, and all he furnishes is the workmanship. Society permits him to use its property, but it is on condition that, after a certain time, the whole shall become part of the common stock. To find a parallel case, let it be supposed that liberal men should, out of their earnings, place at the disposal of the people of your town stone, bricks, and lumber, in quantity sufficient to find accommodation for hundreds of people that were unable to provide for themselves; next suppose that in this state of things your authorities should say to any man or men, "Take these materials, and procure lime in quantity sufficient to build a house; employ carpenters, bricklayers, and architects, and then, in consideration of having found the lime and the workmanship, you shall have a right to charge your own price to every person who may, for all times, desire to occupy a room in it "; would this be doing justice to the men who had given the raw materials for public use? Would it be doing justice to the community by which they had been given? Would it not, on the contrary, be the height of injustice? Unquestionably it would, and it would raise a storm that would speedily displace the men who had thus abused their trust. Their successors would then say: "Messrs.---- our predecessors, did what they had no right to do. These materials are common property. They were given without fee or reward, with a view to benefit the whole people of our town, many of whom are badly accommodated, while others are heavily taxed for helping those who are unable to help themselves. To carry out the views of the benevolent men to whom we are indebted for all these stone, bricks, and lumber, they must remain common property. You may, if you will, convert them into a house, and, in consideration of the labor and skill required for so doing, we will grant you, during a certain time, the privilege of letting the rooms, at your own price, to those who desire to occupy them; but at the close of that time the building must become common property, to be disposed of as we please." This is exactly what the community says to the gentlemen who employ themselves in converting its common property into books, and to say more would be doing great injustice.

The length of time for which the building should be thus granted would depend upon the number of persons that would be likely to use the rooms, and the prices they would be willing to pay. If lodgers were likely to be few and poor, a long time would be required to be given; but if, on the contrary, the community were so great and prosperous as to render it certain that all the rooms would be occupied every day in the year, and at such prices as would speedily repay the labor and skill that had been required, the time allowed would be short. Here, as we see, the course of things would be entirely different from that which is observed in regard to books, the monopoly of which has increased in length with the growth, in wealth and number, of the consumers, and is now attempted, by the aid of international copyright, to be extended over millions of men who are yet exempt from its operation.

The people of this country own a vast quantity of wild land, which by slow degrees acquires a money value, that value being due to the contributions of thousands and tens of thousands of people who are constantly making roads towards them, and thus facilitating the exchange of such commodities as may be raised from them. These lands are common property, but the whole body of their owners has agreed that whenever any one of their number desires to purchase out the interest of his partners he may do so at $1.25 per acre. They do not _give_ him any of the common property; they require him to purchase and pay for it.

With authors they pursue a more liberal course. They say: "We have extensive fields in which hundreds of thousands of men have labored for many centuries. They were at first wild lands, as wild as those of the neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains, but this vast body of laborers has felled the trees and drained the swamps, and has thus removed nearly all the difficulties that stood opposed to profitable cultivation. They have also' opened mines of incalculable richness; mines of gold, silver, lead, copper, iron, and other metals, and all of these are common property. The men who executed these important works were our slaves, ill fed, worse clothed, and still worse lodged; and thousands of the most laborious and useful of them have perished of disease and starvation. Great as are the improvements already made, their number is constantly increasing, for we continue to employ such slaves--active, intelligent, and useful men-- in extending them, and scarcely a day elapses that does not bring to light some new discovery, tending greatly to increase the value of _our common property_. We invite you, gentlemen, to come and cultivate these lands and work these mines. They are free to all. During the long period of forty-two years you shall have the whole product of your labor, and all we shall ask of you, at the close of that period, will be that you leave behind the common property of which we are now possessed, increased by the addition of such machinery as you may yourselves have made. The corn that you may have extracted, and the gold and silver that you may have mined during that long period, will be the property of yourselves, your wives, and your children. We charge no rent for the use of the lands, no wages for the labor of our slaves." Not satisfied with this, however, the persons who work these rich fields and mines claim to be absolute owners, not only of all the gold and silver they extract, but of all the machinery they construct out of the common property; and out of this claim grows the treaty now before the Senate.

If justice requires the admission of foreigners to the enjoyment of a monopoly of the sale of their books it should be conceded at once to all, and it should be declared that no book should be printed here without the consent of its author, let him be Englishman, Frenchman, German, Russian, or Hindoo. This would certainly greatly increase the difficulty now existing in relation to the dissemination of knowledge; but if justice does require it let it be done. Would it, however, benefit the men who have real claims on our consideration? Let us see. A German devotes his life to the study of the history of his country, and at length produces a work of great value, but of proportional size. Real justice says that his work may not be used without his permission; that the facts he has brought to light from among the vast masses of original documents he has examined are his property, and can be published by none others but himself. The legislation, whose aid is invoked in the name of justice by literary men, speaks, however, very differently. It says: "This work is very cumbrous. To establish his views this man has gone into great detail. If translated, his book will scarcely sell to such extent as to pay the labor. The facts are common property. Out of this book you can make one that will be much more readable, and that will sell, for it will not be of more than one third the size. Take it, then, and extract all you need, and you will do well. You will have, too, another advantage. Translation confers no reputation; but an _original_ work, such as I now recommend to you, will give you such a standing as may lead you on to fortune. Few people know any thing of the original work, and it will not be necessary for you to mention that all your materials are thence derived." On the other hand, a lady who has read the work of this poor German finds in it an episode that she expands into a novel, which sells rapidly, and she reaps at home a large reward for her labors; while the man who gave her the idea starves in a garret. A literary friend of the lady novelist, delighted with her success, finds in his countrywoman's treasury of facts the material for a poem out of which he, too, reaps a harvest. Both of these are protected by international copyright, _because they have furnished nothing but the clothing of ideas;_ but the man who supplied them with the ideas finds that his book is condensed abroad, and given to the public, perhaps, without even the mention of his name.

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 3,000 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 copyright, 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 republished 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 republished 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, he paid his respects 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 have heard, less than five hundred dollars a year. In what manner, now, would Humboldt be benefited by international copyright? I know of none; but it is very plain to see that Dumas, Victor Hugo, and George Sand, might derive from it immense revenues. In confirmation of this view, I here 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 copyright is Mr. Dickens, who is said to realize $70,000 per annum from 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 translation 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 copyright that could have been given to him or Humboldt would not have enriched either the one or the other. 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 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. How the present system operates in regard to English and American authors, I propose to consider in another letter.