produced to the world. Examine Mr. Macaulay's "History of England" and you
will find that the body is composed of what is common property. Not only
have the facts been recorded by others, but the ideas, too, are derived
from the works of men who have labored for the world without receiving,
and frequently without the expectation of receiving, any pecuniary
compensation for their labors. Mr. Macaulay has read much and carefully,
and he has thus been enabled to acquire great skill in arranging and
clothing his facts; but the reader of his books will find in them no
contribution to positive knowledge. The works of men who make
contributions of that kind are necessarily controversial and distasteful
to the reader; for which reason they find few readers, and never pay their
authors. Turn now to our own authors, Prescott and Bancroft, who have
furnished us with historical works of so great excellence, and you will
find a state of things precisely similar. They have taken a large quantity
of materials out of the common stock, in which you, and I, and all of us
have an interest; and those materials they have so reclothed as to render
them attractive of purchasers; but this is all they have done. Look to Mr.
Webster's works, and you will find it the same. He was a great reader. He
studied the Constitution carefully, with a view to understand what were
the views of its authors, and those views he reproduced in different and
more attractive clothing, and there his work ended. He never pretended, as
I think, to furnish the world with any new ideas; and if he had done so,
he could have claimed no property in them. Few now read the heavy volumes
containing the speeches of Fox and Pitt. They did nothing but reproduce
ideas that were common property, and in such clothing as answered the
purposes of the moment. Sir Robert Peel did the same. The world would now
be just as wise had he never lived, for he made no contribution to the
general stock of knowledge. The great work of Chancellor Kent is, to use
the words of Judge Story, "but a new combination and arrangement of old
materials, in which the skill and judgment of the author in the selection
and exposition, and accurate use of those materials, constitute the basis
of his reputation, as well as of his copyright." The world at large is the
owner of all the facts that have been collected, and of all the ideas that
have been deduced from them, and its right in them is precisely the same
that the planter has in the bale of cotton that has been raised on his
plantation; and the course of proceeding of both has, thus far, been
precisely similar; whence I am induced to infer that, in both cases, right
has been done. When the planter hands his cotton to the spinner and the
weaver, he does not say, "Take this and convert it into cloth, and keep
the cloth;" but he does say, "Spin and weave this cotton, and for so doing
you shall have such interest in the cloth as will give you a fair
compensation for your labor and skill, but, when that shall have been
paid, _the cloth will be mine_." This latter is precisely what society,
the owner of facts and ideas, says to the author: "Take these raw
materials that have been collected, put them together, and clothe them
after your own fashion, and for a given time we will agree that nobody
else shall present them in the same dress. During that time you may
exhibit them for your own profit, but at the end of that period the
clothing will become common property, as the body now is. It is to the
contributions of your predecessors to our common stock that you are
indebted for the power to make your book, and we require you, in your
turn, to contribute towards the augmentation of the stock that is to be
used by your successors." This is justice, and to grant more than this
would be injustice.
Let us turn now, for a moment, to the producers of works of fiction. Sir
Walter Scott had carefully studied Scottish and Border history, and thus
had filled his mind with facts preserved, and ideas produced, by others,
which he reproduced in a different form. He made no contribution to
knowledge. So, too, with our own very successful Washington Irving. He
drew largely upon the common stock of ideas, and dressed them up in a new,
and what has proved to be a most attractive form. So, again, with Mr.
Dickens. Read his "Bleak House" and you will find that he has been a most
careful observer of men and things, and has thereby been enabled to
collect a great number of facts that he has dressed up in different forms,
but that is all he has done. He is in the condition of a man who had
entered a large garden and collected a variety of the most beautiful
flowers growing therein, of which he had made a fine bouquet. The owner of
the garden would naturally say to him: "The flowers are mine, but the
arrangement is yours. You cannot keep the bouquet, but you may smell it,
or show it for your own profit, for an hour or two, but then it must come
to me. If you prefer it, I am willing to pay you for your services, giving
you a fair compensation for your time and taste." This is exactly what
society says to Mr. Dickens, who makes such beautiful literary bouquets.
What is right in the individual, cannot be wrong in the mass of
individuals of which society is composed. Nevertheless, the author objects
to this, insisting that he is owner of the bouquet itself, although he has
paid no wages to the man who raised the flowers. Were he asked to do so,
he would, as I shall show in another letter, regard it as leading to great
injustice.
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."