“Nineteenth century America was a major center of piracy.”

U.S. piracy in the 19th century
(see source at the end of the document)

Nineteenth century America was a major center of piracy. The principal target of U.S. pirates was the rich variety of British books and periodicals. The U.S. was a perennial headache among British authors and publishers, because foreign authors had no rights in America. American publishers and printers, led by Harpers of New York and Careys of Philadelphia, routinely violated British copyright and “reprinted a very wide range of British publications.”

James Barnes, who wrote an excellent book on this subject, said that the Americans were “suspicious about international copyright,” and were afraid that recognizing international copyright meant “exploitation and domination of their book trade.” Barnes noted that “as a young nation, the United States wanted the freedom to borrow literature as well as technology from any quarter of the globe, and it was not until 1891 that Congress finally recognized America’s literary independence by authorizing reciprocal copyright agreements with foreign powers.”

Throughout the 19th century, Barnes writes, a group of American authors and Anglophiles led a persistent but futile campaign to get a copyright treaty between the U.S. and Britain ratified, but their efforts were overcome by a much stronger lobby for free access to British publications. But time and again, the U.S. Senate rejected proposed laws or treaties that would have granted copyright to foreign authors in the United States.

As Barnes put it, “If Americans thought of the topic [i.e. copyright] at all they were concerned with protecting protecting domestic copyright and not the rights of foreigners. As a country, nineteenth century America was akin to a present-day underdeveloped nation which recognizes its dependence on those more commercially and technologically advanced, and desires the fruits of civilization in the cheapest and most convenient ways. Reprinting English
literature seemed easy and inexpensive, and so America borrowed voraciously.”

Barnes continued: “In 1831, ‘An Act to Amend the Several Acts Respecting Copyrights’ was signed. It extended the copyright term from fourteen to twenty-eight years, with the option of renewal for an additional fourteen. If an author died, his widow or children could apply for the extension. For the first time, the law allowed musical compositions to be copyrighted. But not a word on international copyright. In fact, foreign authors were explicitly barred from protection, which in essence safeguarded reprints.”

Even the U.S. president at that time, John Quincy Adams, was himself “strongly opposed to international copyright.”

In 1837, Senator Henry Clay introduced a copyright bill before the U.S. Senate. Within days, “a flood of negative memorials reached Washington,” and objections deluged both houses of Congress. The U.S. Senate’s Patent Committee rejected “the intention of the measure,” its reasons sounding very much like the justification today of Third World countries for their liberal attitude towards intellectual property. The Committee’s reasons were:

• “A copyright agreement would promote higher book prices and smaller editions. The point was driven home by comparing the retail prices of new books in England and America, for it was acknowledged that English books were disproportionately more expensive.”
• “A large portion of the U.S. publishers’ business “would be reduced perhaps as much as nine-tenths, certainly as much as three-fourths, if copyright be granted to foreign books.”
• “Many more English authors stood to gain by such a treaty because American authors rarely if ever received favorable publishing terms in Britain.”
• Copyright has never been regarded among nations as property standing on the footing of wares or merchandise, or as a proper subject for national protection against foreign spoilation.” Every government has always been left to make such regulations as it thinks proper, “with no right of complaint or interference by any other government.”
• British authors only want the U.S. Congress to pass an act which will enable them to “monopolize the publication here [in the U.S.] as well as in England, of all English works for the supply of the American market.”

The Committee also explained why international patents were acceptable but not international copyright: “American ingenuity in the arts and practical sciences, would derive at least as much benefit from international patent laws, as that of foreigners. Not so with authorship and book-making. The difference is too obvious to admit of controversy.”

In short, the Americans stood to gain a lot of benefits by recognizing international patents; and they likewise stood to gain a lot of benefits by not recognizing international copyright. It was purely a matter of national interest.

The U.S. printers advanced their own arguments for reprinting British publications without regard for international copyright:

• They were making available to the American people cheap books which would otherwise be very costly if they had to compensate foreign authors. It was generally acknowledged that the low prices of American books would inevitably rise after the passage of a copyright treaty.
• Access by the American printing industry to British works provided thousands of jobs.
• British authors and publishers would exercise “complete control over the publication of their works in the U.S.” Popular British writers “could then exact their own prices for their books when sold here [in the U.S.].” Thus copyright would not only enhance the profits of major authors, but at the same time protect and encourage second-rate foreign talent.
• International copyright “would also interfere with the laws of supply and demand because it encouraged monopoly which was never in the public interest.”
• Tariff duties might be appropriate for some industries, but they were never intended to confer a monopoly on a producer.
• Books are “unlike other commodities”; whereas it took the same amount of labor to create each new hat or boot, “the multiplication of copies of a book meant a saving on each additional facsimile.”
• Authors and publishers enjoy copyright “only by virtue of statute law;” copyright is not “absolute and natural ownership.” The right of individual property is subordinate to the public good which is “best served through competition and cheap reprints.”

Several bills were introduced in 1870, 1871 and again in 1872, but they were all opposed by American publishers and the printing unions, because they would “make English books more expensive, rarely benefit American authors as a class, and permanently injure the interests of book manufacturers.”

And so it went. In the early 1880′s, the copyright movement gained more strength, but not quite enough to overcome the more powerful forces that benefited from free and unrestricted access to foreign publications.

By this time, however, the U.S. had already accumulated a wealth of American-authored works which were themselves widely reprinted abroad. American books like Uncle Tom ‘s Cabin became quite popular in England. Also, U.S. authors and their publishers had acquired considerable political clout. The U.S. was ready to “protect” foreign authors, so that it in turn demanded protection for American authors abroad.
In July 1891, the U.S. Congress adopted the Chace International Copyright Act of 1891, establishing a framework for bilateral copyright agreements based on reciprocity. While the act granted copyright to resident and nonresident authors for a period of 28 years, renewable for another 14, it also set very difficult conditions, reflecting the interests of the U.S. publishing industry:

• A foreign book had to be published in the U.S. not later than its publication in its home country.
• All manufacturing of books, photos, chromos and lithographs to be done in the U.S. (This is the so-called “manufacturing clause,” which is today protested by the U.S., when Third World governments adopt it to ensure that a technology is actually worked in their own country.)
• Foreign copyrighted books in English, photographs, chromos, lithographs or plates could be imported for sale, but not more than two copies at a time could be imported for use, and these were subject to duty.
• Foreign works published before July 1, 1891 may not be copyrighted.

In 1952, the U.S. joined the Universal Copyright Convention (UCC), but not the Berne Convention, which was considered the “premier instrument of international copyright.” Under the UCC, the U.S. retained such protectionist as the requirement of manufacture in the United States.

In the meantime, the U.S. had been exerting tremendous pressures on Third World governments to adopt strict intellectual property laws and to strengthen their enforcement. By the late 1980′s, a number of governments, including Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea in Asia, had finally succumbed to U.S. pressure.

And so in 1989, the U.S. finally and belatedly acceded to the Berne copyright convention.

=
Source:

TOWARDS A POLITICAL ECONOMY OF INFORMATION
Studies on the information economy
by Roberto Verzola – rverzola@gn.apc.org

ISBN 971-847-24-0
Published by:
Foundation for Nationalist Studies, Inc.
38 Panay Avenue
Quezon City
Philippines
First Printing March 2004
Here: Part I, Section 3 (pages 19 – 24)

[This chapter based principally on the excellent book Authors, Publishers
and Politicians by James J. Barnes. John Tebbel's somewhat biased
account in A History of Book Publishing in the United States also details
the futile attempts in the 1870's and 1880's to pass U.S. legislation that
would protect the rights of foreign authors, and the developments that
led to the eventual adoption of the 1891 U.S. Copyright Act which
extended some protection to foreign authors.]