New-York tribune., 1900-04-21
PERPETUAL COPYRIGHT.
WHAT MARK TWAIN TOLD THE HOUSE OF
LORDS.

From The London Telegraph
The select committee of the House CT Lords
presided by Lord Monkswen to which is
referred the two bills to amend the law relating
to copyright, met to-day for the purpose of TAX
ing the evidence of Samuel Clemens C'Mark
TWain'O. In the course of his evidence, Mr..
Clemens said he thought the copyright of
England and America nearly What
they ought to be that they needed only Cne
commercially trifing, but morally gigantic,
amendment in order to become perfect. That
amendment would be in the removal Of the
fOrty-two years limit. and the return to per-
petual copyright.
one of the reasons in favor of limited copy
right was, he was persuaded, fallacious. 1t was
the one which made a distinction between an
authors property and real estate, and pretended
that the two were not created produced,
quired in the same way, and that this warranted
a different treatment of the two by the law. In
his view, the source from which both proceeded
was the same. By the usual phraSing a book
was merely combination OF ideas. nebulous
tnlng, II was said. on which to base property
right which should be permanent; and yet there
was property of any kind which was not
the result of the application of some mans in
telleCtual gifts, mans labor of brain as
well as hand, some mans successful COmbina-
ton of ideas The man who purchased landed
estate had to the money by the superiorties
of his intellect at the bar in trade, in manufa,t
ures or other industries His land was what q
book was, the result OF his brain work a
combination and exploiting of ideas. 1t was his
idea that copyright limit was not what was
called a sound public policy, and that it con-
ferred no large benefit upon anybody. When a
copyright died it was not the case that the law
gave the book TO the publishers a free gift
1t merely gave the authors profit in it to the
public. The profits of the publishers were re-
tanned for themselves. The forty-two years
limit killed a fairly popular book and then.
which could have had larger life but for the
limit. Half a dozen publishers jumped for the
book at once. They glutted the market for six
weeks with extra cheap editions. As a rule they
all got their fingers burned the book sank out
Of sight and the public might have to go without
it for ten years One could not resurrect any
but a very strong book like that
out of every hundred tons of books sold
ninetynine Tight literature" Then to
benefit the nation substantially would need
TO furnish it with ninety-nine tons at as cheap
rate as possible. The other ton was not of
consequence his own books We're light litera-
ture--very light Many unthinking thinkers, he
added. think they think. Uaughter) In his
experience, copyright the absence of it did
not affect his books here. The cheap edition
very soon followed the high priced one, and the
cheap price was just the same upon the books
which lacked English copyright as it was upon
those which possessed it. These books were
closely packed with printed matter and were
sold at is The destruction of the copyright
could hardly cheaper them more, certainly not
enough TO make the Empire lose it's sleeD for
JOY over the windfal. Uaughter. He believed
IL was public demand more than the publisher
or Parliamentary legislation which determined
the price of a book. A publisher would make
any honorable sacrifce-that had money in IL
Permanent cheap editions of deathless books
would be assured by perpetual copyright He
believed there was only one book in tha 1rori6 =
which had been justly and fairly treated since
Queen Anne's time-the English Bible was the
only existing book, so far he knew which
pbSSCSSeu
petual copyright. That had not deprived the
public of marveuOusy cheap editions Was the
value to the nation of terminable copyright
great enough TO make 1T worth trouble Of
Parliament to continue it?
His plea for return to perpetual copyright
that terminable copyright did not take pen-
MES enough out of pockets of an authors heir
to make the thing worth while Practically
there substantial advantage in it for
nybOdy. There no dignity in the taking of
Pennies-and no money in it. The royalty on the
books of Brtons during the century which had
survived the forty-two-year limit would proba-
bly, not amount TO $500 a year, and il was this
which, by the grace of limited copyright
the richest nation on the earth took out of the
pockets of the children of the little handful of
illustrious men who in the stretch of a century
had done great and acknowledged a share in
building the British power, broadening the worlds
civilization, and spreading wide the glory OF the
English name. He suggested that, the end
of any limit Parliament might fix, an author
should be compelled to provide an edition OF
his book at one-eighth of the published price
and that If he allowed the book to be out of
print for "A year he should lose the copyrieht
1t would perhaps be better to have some au-
thority fix the price OF the cheap edition than
TO fix il arbitrarily at One-etghth.
BY Lord FaTrer-There was no difficulty in
taxing the property of literary men He had
been taxed 10y the Government of this country j
some years ago and, being curious To know how
he had escaped so long. he wrote. and received
in explanation a number of documents showing
that nothing had been overlooked Q-aughter).
under and he found il was taxed gas works
daughter. That literally true and II hurt
him. Laughter).