The Sun.
London, England, 1841-03-29 00:00:00

FRENCH LA

REPORT OF M. DE LAMARTINE ON THE
FRENCH COPYRIGHT BILL.
" Gentlemen,—ln constituting property society had
three objects in view. The remuneration of labour, the per-
petuation cf a family, and the increase of the public
wealth. Justice, forethought, and interest are the three
bases of all possession?. Why should they, therefore, not
baye a place in the constitution of literary or artistical
pi operty ? This was the first and most important ques-
tion for the consideration of your Committee. In this, as
during the whole course of its labours, it could derive no
advantage from the experience of pre-existing legislations.
All was to be discovered and created. Antiquity was si-
lent, and modern legislcion had only spoke in an arbi-
trary, confused, and frequently contradictory language.
An outline of the law of Jan. 19, 1791 ; a decree of the
Convention of July 19, 1793; another decree of Feb. 5,
1810; an admirable project of M. de Salvandy ; and a dis-
cussion in the Chamber cf Peers, were the only landmarks
to point out a path to us.
" The only code to which your Commission could turn
was natural equity.
" Some men live by the sweat of their brow, others by
that of their brain. The results of these labours ar dif-
ferent, but the title of the labourer is the same. Tine
struggle with the land and the change; of season, and reap
the visible fruits of their labours. The others have to con-
tend against ideas, ignorance, and prejudices. Their
pages are watered with the t il-wrung sweat of intelli-
gence, too often with tears, sometimes even with their
blood, and thus, at the sport of time and fortune, they
reap misery or public favour, martyrdom or gLry. These
palpable and incontestibte results of material labour have
appeared in their most striking form to the legislator. He
said to the labourer who tilled the ground, ' This field
shall be thine, and shall be inherited by thy offspring, and
all thy succeeding generations shall reap the reward of thy
labours.' And thus was instiSaated territorial property, the
basis of families, the foiindetion of permanent and enduring
society.
" By virtue of a just and nataral induction, the day
must come when the work of intelligence will be consi-
dered as an useful labour, and the fruits thereof a pro-
perty. But by a generosity worthy of its nature, the idea
which had created all fcrgot itself. It only asked to hand
down a glorious name to posterity, whilst the family of the
poet and philosopher, whose works formed the intel-
le,stual wealth of a whole nation, were pining in want and
misery. The idea came from God, seas useful to man, and
returned to God, leavirg a bright furrow on the brow of
him on whom genius had lighted, and on the name of his
sons.
" Is it just, is it useful, is it possible, to leave the pro-
perty of their labours in the hands of authors or their fami-
lies ? These are the three questions on which we have to
deliberate. And have not these questions been answered
beforehand? What is justice but the proper:ion between
cause and effect, between labour and retribution? As
man employs some portion of his powers, a few short easy
hours of his life, aided by a capital transmitted to him by
his fathers in the cultivation of his estates, or in some
lucrative trade, he heaps up riches upon riches, and
partakes largely of all the joys and luxuries of life.
The possession of all this is ensured to him
for the term of his natural life, and after him to his chil-
dren, or those whcm he shall point out by will. Another
man pastes his whole life, consumes his moral powers,
enervates his physical forces, forgetful of himself, his
family, and friends, to enrich mankind with one of these
noble works of intellect, or some of these ideas, which
cause millions cf men to think. He dies, but he succeeds.
His noble work and sublime ideas have gone forts, and
have been seized upon by the intellectual world, as also
by the trading and speculating portion of mankind. It
becomes a slow and frequently posthumous source of
wealth. It throws millions into circulation, and is ex-
ported as if it were a natural productioa of the soil.
All men have a right to it, excepting he who created its
and the widow and children of this man may wander about
from door to door in the midst of public wealth and vast
private fortune, cursing the ungrateful country which re-
fuses remuneration to the labours of their father. In the
name of conscience—by that ineffaceable cads of equity
traced by the hand of God himself, shall such a state of
things continue ?
" Cisilization is the daughter of books. The work
which can, as it were, create, destroy, or transform the
world, shall it become an object of indifference to mankind?
" And, lastly, is it possible this eventual and fugitive
wealth which results from the materialized propagation of
thought, from impression, and from books ; is it of a na-
ture to be seized upon, fixed, and regulated into a form of
property ? To this question we have merely to point out
facts for a reply. This property exists, and is bought and
sold like any other property. We had only to study the
proceeds, and regularize its conditions, in order that it
might wholly enter into the domain of things possessed,
and guaranteed to their possessors. And this we have done.
"'The real interest cf society is to see the profits of a use•
ful work remain as long as possible in the possession of
those who created the work. Moreover, society has an-
other interest, tshich is this—that the private property o
a work remaining for a longer time in the hands of eagi,
lent and interested possessors, the longer will the pirated
foreign editions of this book be prohibited, and thus will
the commercial wealth of the nation be maintained. But
greater than all these, there is another reason. It ha; been
asked, of what is composed the moral unity, the abstract
being of an author. It consists of the author himself, his
wife, and children. The father, wife, and eons are one.
This may be called the family in its first degree. Since
you wish to continue literary property for a certain num-
ber of years, do not take thirty years after the death of the
author, a period at which his widow may still be living,
and his children have scarce crossed the threshold
of life. But take half a century, which embraces the
mean probability of the eventualities of life and death,
the entire circle of the three existences which represent
and immediately follow up the author himself. Break not
up this one moral being into two or three portions ; let not
the son be brought up in the lap of luxury, and then be
consigned to indigence. The term of thirty years would
day after day present to us the scandalous spectacle of the
public domain being enriched by the spoils cf genius, in
the very teeth of the widow and children of the man of
genius, who would be living in want and misery. And
lastly do not forget that that which you enact by law will
not be realised in fact. If you enact thirty bears the
family will not actually inhei it more than twenty years, and
if you enact fifty, they will not reap the benefits for more
than forty. Such is the fate of commerce. When it is
advertised by the law of the fatal period at which the pro-
perty ceases—when it falls into the private domain, it sud-
denly stops and awaits."
After entering into some statistical details concerning
sacred books, M. de Lamartine turns to dramatic literature.
On this subject be says—
" The legislator would not pass over the fruits of that
noble art which was raised by antiquity to the dignity of
an institution, which is watched with extreme vigilance by
the police of modern States, on account of its vast power
and influence. The noble creations of dramatic literature
have done much to propagate our language and our civili-
zation. Our theatre is identified with our patriotism.
Can we disinherit it?
" A dramatic composition consists of two distinct parts
—the composition and the representation. It is a mere
writing as long as it remains in the author's hands.
It is an action from the time when it passes into the hands
of the actor. Dogs, therefore, this double and complicated
quality of theatrical pieces constitute a double property ?
Without the author the theatre can have no drama—with-
out the actor the drama cannot be represented. The
theatre and the author, therefore, being both proprietors,
ought to make an equitable adjustment of this their corn-
mon property. Such was the law ; but usage went be-
yond the law. No piece could be represented without
the permission of the author. A retribution for the author
was fixed according to dramatic regulations, and we have
merely added that their right to this retribution shall exist
for fifty years after the death of the author.
" The same principle shall he applied to musical com-
posers, whatever he the form in which their musical crea-
tions be published.
6' We next turn to the brilliant results produced by the
chi ~cl, the brush, and the pencil. We have treated with
all tire respect they deserve these arts, half mechanical,
half intellectual, by which ideas are personified in marble
or on canvas, and by which genius is materialised in the
hand of man. We have entered into a minute investiga-
tion concerning the property of those works of art, but
have not passed the limits, scarcely definable, in which the
art is absorbed in the profession. The remuneration of
the profession is by money and patent, the remuneration
of the art is the glory and property.
" But here again rose a serious controversy. To whom
shall belong the right of reproducing by engraving or
moulding ? in the purchaser of a picture or states, or to
the artist ? We have received on this subject numerous
eloquent protestations, some of which were dressed in
the authority of that very institute whose name alone ex-
cites our respect and veneration. We have received the
opinions of the first painters and statuaries of the age on
this subject. These grcans from genius have found in
your Commission sympathising interpreters. The 8r
title has been maintained which was presentedd by if
by the
Got crnment, voted by the Peers, and adm
itteder to be
Commission in 1826. The right of al tists,
in
not cote
exercised, must be duly inscribed.
acntcd to bestow upon them a privilegNeVe hhinevhe, whilst it
condemned the sole object to an oncrouswtservi:ude, they
might even refuse to declare in the con.traac
" Article 6 refers to pains and
h: penitie,. All ltrahwesawiditiori
out guarantee are fictitious. TTe law Commission
equ
force, which is pueisbment. 'res
has been
una.nimeus in their wish to arm literary property with suffi-
cient moral and penal force to enable it to repel the attacks
of internal piracy. A fine of from sop to. 0,000 francs
(121. to 801.) has been fixed, together with damages equal
in amount to the value of the counterfeited edition. An
incre
esed fine and imprisonment are inserted in the event
of a ropetition of the offence. If too strong punishments
discour,ge the Judge in his administration of justice, even
so do light punishments teed to discourage commerce and
depreciate property. Placed between these two dilemma,"
we have d ecided that a severe punishment should be in-
flicted on a crime which is so frequently committed in the
dark, and that it should be punished with the dishonour
which it has braved, and also by the reparation which it
has sought to avoid. The law has, therefore, fixed the
damages at the value of the counterfeited edition. This
is the exact weight of reparation when placed in the ba-
lance against the crime.
" FOREIGN PIRACY OF C
,‘But whilst we have been forming "aniacloidTe. for literary
property in France, the crying urgency of an international
law for the protection of this sort of property has made