If someone can dispose of something at pleasure in his own name, then
that someone has a right to that thing. But if someone can perform
only in the name of another, he transacts this business such that the
other is thereby bound, as if the business were transacted by
himself. (Quod quis facit per alium, ipse fecisse putandus
set). Therefore my right to the transacting of a business in the name
of another is a personal positive right, to necessitate the author of
the business to guarantee something, namely, to answer for everything
which he has done through me, or to which he obliges himself through
me. The publishing of the work is now a speech to the public (by
printing) in the name of the author, and is consequently a business in
the name of another. Therefore the right to it is a right of the
editor's against a person: not merely to defend himself in the use of
his property at pleasure against him; but to necessitate him to
acknowledge and to answer for as his own a certain business, which the
editor transacts in his name; consequently this is a personal positive
right.
The copy, according to which the editor prints, is a work of the
author's and belongs totally to the editor after he has purchased it,
either in the manuscript form or the printed form, to do with it
everything the editor pleases, where said doings can be done in the
editor's own name; for that is a requisite of the complete right in a
thing, i.e. ownership. But the use, which the editor cannot make of it
except only in the name of another (namely the author's), is a
business (opera) that this other transacts through the owner of the
copy, where in addition to the ownership of the copy, a particular
contract is still requisite for other rights to be provided to the
owner of the copy.
Now, the publication of a book is a business which can only be
transacted in the name of another (namely the author, whom the editor
presents as speaking to the public through him); therefore the rights
of transacting the business of publishing the book is separate from
the rights that are associated with the ownership of a copy of the
book. The right to publish the book can legally be acquired only by a
particular contract with the author. Who publishes without such a
contract with the author (or, if the author has already granted this
right to another, i.e. to an authorized editor, without a contract
with that authorized editor) is the counterfeiter, who then damages
the authorized editor, and must make amends to him for all damages.