The Express.
London, England, 1855-04-30 00:00:00

NEWSPAPER COPYRIGHT.

Tun discussion on the Newspaper Stamp Bill
will be resumed in Committee this evening. In ;
so far u concerns those clauses which relate to the
conferring and limitation of postal privileges, or the
remuneration to be paid for the services of the Post-
°Sloe, the Bill may be regarded u safe. The
only struggle, if any, that is likely to take
place in Committee will relate to the question
of Copyright, and the provisions by which it is to be
enforced. Some of the most respectable of the pro-
vincial journals mum to have allowed them-
selves to be carried away by a strange
misconception of, or prepouession against, this
part of the measure. They appear to an-
ticipate from it vexatious proceedings to prevent
their availing themselves of that very consider-
able portion of the contents of any journal which by
the courtesy of newspapers has hitherto been regarded
as common property. Under this head may be
classed reports of proceedings in Parliament and the
courts of law, and of public meetings, and paragraphs
of local interest. It has always been the custom of
_ _ _

newspapers freely to give and take such ieformatioo
from each other without the trouble of a pedantically
serspelous acknowledgment. In the. matters
all are so nearly on a footing of equality that
the sesegnition of a community of property
le ft= has been found to be beat for all.
But the can is otherwise with valuable articles
of original composition, cad news procured from a
distance, through exclusive morose and at great met.
The neeknowledged appropriation of these—even the
acknowledged appropriation, optimistically and to a
great extent--is an injury to any newspaper, and
more especially to such newspapers ea are struggling
to obtain a position. All journals have a right to be
protected in the use of what has cost them labour,
skill, and hard money. The public ham an interest in
their being so promoted; for unless they are, they
cannot continue to be at the same trouble and expense
to serve the public; and there will be no chance
of new first-olass papers starting up to as.
sect principles and defend sections of the epee-
inanity unrepresented in the existing press. That
the privilege of Copyright proposed to be conferred
upon newspapers, will be exerted in the unjust and
vexation manner which some of our provincial eau.
temporaries apprehend, is impossible. At present the
worts of law afford ample protection to all kinds of
material property. Yet there are only ono of two
Instances on record of landed propriotois abusing this

to enforce

MONDAY

Mee— broken!" twig of no real value from
beiges. Public opinion her mailed to pat
dews emb pervenions and wresting@ of. the law;
and journalists are more amenable to' public) opinion
than any other elm of proprietors.
The copyright elapses, and the provisions to ia•
huge than by moans of a cheap, acosssible, and suer
Mediation, and by the conferring upon news.'
paper proprietors the privilege of suing along wilb
the liability to be sued in the persons of those of their
number who are registered, is the most Isperimg
pert of the new 3dtagos Chute of the press. Thew
boor would be no more than justice even lino change
were contemplated in the Stamp Law. The bat 1
proprietary title is that of invention or creation.l
The sculptor and painter have a right of property ia
the forms and combinations which they asps.
The poet has a right of property in his verse,
the composer in his music. Such have been the
recognised principle of law from the days of the Ho-
man republic. Is the right of the author (or of the I
publisher to whom he transfers it) in his works lees
when they are short than when they are long P when
they appear in serial publications than when they
appear in one volume? Had ADDISON and STEILLI
a weaker right of property in their contributions to
the " Spectator " than in their " Cato" and " Christian
Hero?" Had GOLDSMITH a weaker right of pro-
perty in his " Citizen of the World," which origi-
ginally appeared in a newspaper, than in his "Vicar
of Wakefield?" The only remuneration obtained by
arthits, men of maim*, and men of letters,
for their labours, is their right of property
in what they produce. We ask no more for
them, but we do insist upon this. In like manner
the journalist who by discovering exclusive sources
d information, by combining more rapid modes of
tronentiadon, by expending larger sums of money,
contrives to outstrip his competitors, has • right
of property in the publication of the intel-
ligence he communicates, until such time as
it can be obtained by any one through other
channels. "The labourer is worthy of his hire."
The public have no more right to be Nerved gratui-
Windy than individual& There is a cant about its
being for the interest of the public that "ohil-
dren of the brain" should be common property.
The " public " is a mere word designating
an aggregate of individuals, and the whole
eannot be served by isjustice to the parts that make
it up. It is with surprise, therefore, that we see a
laboured and sophistical argument spinet copyright
in the Economist—a journal published by a pabordi-

nate official under the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHE-
QUER. Mr. JAMES WILSON, luckily, extends the
application of his principles so widely as to deprive
his sophisms of the power to harm. He applies them
to books and inventions in design as well as to news-
papers. He declares that oar whole legislation upon
copyright proceeds upon a false principle and mart be
changed; that " the Legislature will have to go back-
ward instead of forward in its career of granting privi-
leges." In short Mr. WILSON is the advocate of petty
larceny on a wholesale scale. According to him
WATT had no right of property in his inventions,
SCOTT in his novels, TURNER and WpattE in their
paintings. The man of science, the man of letters,
and the poet are, according to Mr. WILSON, unplamed
bipeds, whose duty it is to submit to be plundered by
all. The argument of the Secretary of the Treasury
strikes at the root of all property : it goes as far as
the French philosopher, who defines private property
to mean robbery. Will Ministers, will the dams of
our universities and the representatives of our great
industrial marts in Parliament sanction such dis-
gracefully dishonest doctrines?—Daily News.