The Pirate Publishers (2003)

The Pirate Publishers Something that Bill Bradley asks Tobias Wolff in this issue's interview calls to my mind an embarrassing moment in The Missouri Review's past. Wolff's new novel, Old School, concerns, among other things, an instance of plagiarism. Some ten years ago, a writer sent us a story plagiarized from two authors—Thorn Jones and Tobias Wolff. It was a well-cobbled-together forgery using the plot of Wolff's "The Rich Brother" and certain paragraphs directly lifted from Jones's "A White Horse." We were fooled and delighted to publish it. Needless to say, we were less than delighted when we had to apologize in a subsequent issue for having unintentionally played a part in a case of plagiarism. It's a telling note regarding both Wolff and Jones that when I notified them about what had happened, both were concerned for the magazine first. Wolff was also sorry for the writer so desperate for publication that he'd resorted to copying other writers' work. This is reminiscent of a larger embarrassment in American publishing history. Plagiarism and its near relative, piracy, play a surprisingly large role in the chronicle of book publishing in America. They are a little-discussed ghost in the attic of the industry and one of the reasons why it has such an uninspired history. From the beginning the absence of international copyright law and America's long-lingering sense of cultural inferiority encouraged American printers to simply steal the books of foreign writers. It was cheaper, easier and less risky than putting out original books; on the other hand, relying on stolen goods was not an incentive to relevancy, quality or the development of editorial skills. It also discouraged publication of American authors. Instead of risk-taking, venturesome entrepreneurs looking to the future, pirate publishers were small-time thieves doing whatever it took to make a nickel. Nineteenth-century magazines on both sides of the Atlantic also engaged in piracy and plagiarism, with some stolen articles and stories bouncing around like ping-pongballs. However, the magazine industry was more vital and technologically sophisticated than the book business, partly because serial production required magazines to be innovative. Following the Civil War, magazines began to enjoy increased circulations and unprecedented amounts of revenue from advertising. One result was that they paid writers well. The sums paid for stories by the larger-circulation magazines from 1900 through World War II sound substantial even now. Many of the great novels of the late 19th century were delivered to readers serially in successive issues of magazines such as The Atlantic Monthly and Harper's. Even as late as the 1940s, magazines continued to be more important to writers' incomes than the perennially lackluster, low-paying book market. Transatlantic literary theft burned up productive writers like Charles Dickens and Mark Twain. Both authors had so many problems with publishers that they started their own publishing operations and spent considerable effort running them. Dickens campaigned for effective international copyright law on one of his American tours, which went over badly with audiences. Americans were either indifferent to such technicalities or took the position that no one "owns" words simply because he or she has spoken, written or even published them. In 1870, ajudge used this reasoning inhis finding againstplaintiffHarriet Beecher Stowe when she sought restitution from a German-language press that had pirated and translated Uncle Tom's Cabin for immigrant German speakers. This case notoriously riled American writers. Even when the U.S. finally joined an international agreement in 1891, the period of copyright coverage was so brief that many felt it scarcely served any purpose. A few years later, Twain sarcastically dismissed the handling of copyright: "Whenever a copyright law is to be made or altered, then the idiots assemble." Yet the reliance on foreign books did begin to change after the copyright agreement of 1891, gradually turning a mostly negative influence on the industry into a mixed one. The rights on books during the first several decades of copyright were typically inexpensive, and cheap foreign books continued to support the new American publishing houses of the 20th century. Publishers still depended on them. However...