Source: https://www.fairmormon.org/blog/2009/09/22/copyright-revelation
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 10:15:11+00:00

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Today the new volume from the Joseph Smith papers project came out. I went and looked at this revelation at the BYU bookstore and decided to wait until they have a 25% off sale next Monday.
That is just one many things I hope commenters will discuss.
Some background on the copyright revelation was posted here.
Yes, the revelation resolves one mystery of who the participants are. I am inclined to believe David Whitmer’s report of the subsequent revelation than the wiki is although it didn’t get recorded. It also seems like there was a thought of preparing the revelation for publication based on all the editing and corrections. So David Whitmer is the only one who thought it was a false revelation. Hyrum Page and the text of the revelation show it was a conditional revelation.
Page certainly understood the revelation to be conditional, but he also notes that there was no way to secure the copyright at Kingston, as they had been sent to do. The real issue with the revelation was not that the sale did not occur but that it (reportedly) wasn’t even possible to secure a copyright at the place they’d been sent to do it. Further research needs to be done to assess whether what Page, et al. were told was accurate. Could copyrights be secured in Kingston? Or did one have to do this in Toronto? What was the law of the time?
Kingston is closer to Ottawa, which became the capitol. Canada was still a dominion of Britain at the time. Kingston was a major city in Joseph Smith’s time.
Are there transcriptions of other revelations not published in D&C?
“Those sent to Kingston were given the understanding that they could not copyright the book there.” Of course, the revelation speaks nothing about the securing of a copyright (or hte copyrighting of the book) in Kingston (or anywhere in Upper Canada); rather, it speaks only of the sale of the copyright. The copyright is intangible personal property, owned by the Prophet and the Church at the time. It could be sold much like other intangible personal property.
Mr. Bradley states that the editor of the Book of Commandments and Revelations “removed elements [of the revelation] promising that a copyright could be secured and sold in Kingston.” Yet, there are no elements regarding securing the copyright in Kingston, only elements of sale of the copyright there. Sale of intangible personal property could of course have occured in Upper Canada.
Mr. Bradley states that “legal research is needed to determine whether it a copyright [sic] could have been secured in Kingston.” No such research is needed, for the securing (or obtaining) of a copyright in Kingston was not at all contemplated by the revelation.
To respond to Mr. Bradley’s request for legal research, allow me to supply the following discussion.
The revelation was received in 1830 in Manchester, near Palmyra, and Kingston was not only the Canadian population center nearest to Manchester (187 miles, 300 kilometers distant; see http://snipurl.com/sjt3t), until the 1840s it was the largest population center in Upper Canada (http://snipurl.com/sjt35). Indeed, Kingston (previously known as Kings Town) was of such early importance that it was chosen as the first capital of the united Canadas, serving in that role from 1841 to 1844; in 1830, however, Canada was not united and there was no one capital. But Kingston was the major population center of Upper Canada at the time. And it was the closest to Manchester.
British statutory copyright law goes back to 1710, but it was not until 1832, with the enactment of the Provincial Statutes of Lower-Canada (http://snipurl.com/sjtaj), that provision was there first made for authors and composers (and their executors, administrators, and legal assigns) to enjoy the sole right to print, reprint, publish, and sell their works (for a term of 28 years). And it was not until 1841 that this statute was extended to Upper Canada.
So what, if any, law applied to the sale (or obtaining, if you will) of copyrighted materials in pre-1841 Upper Canada? “The copyright protection provided by the Statute of Anne and the U. S. Copyright Act did not protect authors from foreign publishers who printed and sold the author’s work in that foreign country. The problem first came up when Irish publishers, to whom the Statute of Anne did not apply, began to print, sell and export cheap reprints of works by English and Scottish authors.
Prior to then, copyright protection of works by American authors would have been provided by provincial laws. But no such laws existed at the time that would extend protection to works by American authors (just the same as in America, the U. S. Copyright Act did not extend protection to foreign authors). It would not be until 1885, with the enactment of the Berne Convention, that a uniform international system of copyright would become law. And it would not be until the Anglo-American copyright of 1891 that the end of piracy would come; prior to that, Canadian publishers were not obliged to pay royalties to American authors; instead, they merely pirated the works and sold them (both in Canada and as cheap versions in America). Hence, the way the Prophet sought to protect his and the Church’s interest in the rights to publishing the Book of Mormon was essentially the only way: sell the copyright to a publisher in Canada. Obviously this meant the rights to priting the book in Upper Canada, not the rights to printing the book everywhere.
My guess would be Stephen Ehat is an attorney. To take a basic historical event and turn it into gobbledygook is something only an attorney could accomplish.
As for your distances and population numbers I found a few differences. Toronto is actually closer to Manchester than Kingston using your link to the google map. I don’t know if this was true in 1830, but it is in 2009. Even if Toronto was a few miles further on 1830 roads, so what!
As for population numbers. I can find none for 1830 Kingston. All I can find is statements that it was the largest population center in the 1840s so that is why it was chosen to be the capital. I can find hard numbers for Toronto. In 1834 Toronto had 9,000 population, 1840 it had 16,000 and in 1851 Toronto had 30,775 and Kingston had 11,585.
But none of this addresses Don Bradley’s original comment.
From my research only British subjects could hold copyright in Canada. No matter how faithful Joseph Smith, Hyrum Page or Oliver Cowdery were, they neither were British subjects nor would the miraculously become one on this trip. Why would a British subject be interested in paying for an American work or copyright when he or she was free to publish the work at will with out any worry of legal recourse?
I agree with you, Mr. Geisner, but I think your insightful post supports the point I am making. While the revelation expressly refers three times to the copyright — the first two references being about “securing” the copyright in all the world (the first of those references using the phrase “upon all the face of the Earth”) — the third reference mentions nothing about securing the copyright; rather it speaks in terms of selling the copyright.
Responding to Mr. Bradley’s suggestion that “legal research” is needed (it is he, not I, who suggested it; and probably appropriately so, in one sense, for after all, copyright is legal in nature, not “historical event”), I agree with you that it would make no sense to seek to sell the copyright for the four provinces of Canada if the copyright had no value. But did it?
While America notoriously provided no protection within its borders for works sought to be sold there written by foreign authors, the same might not be the situation in Canada for works sought to be sold there written by foreign (American) authors. Mr. Bradley invites legal inquiry into “whether it a copyright [sic] could have been secured in Kingston.” Of course, the revelation does not speak of securing it in Canada, only of selling it there. But, to be fair, his request for “legal research” does invite an approach to his basic question: Was it even possible for the Prophet to obtain protection of the Book of Mormon in Canada?
Though neither I nor you have actually substantiated the point with citation to a statute or law, it is possibly correct that pre-1841 copyright law internal to Ontario or internal to the United Kingdom and applicable in Ontario protected only works by British subjects. But I do not know that actually was the case. You use the phrase “only British subjects could hold copyright in Canada”; that gets almost the same point across (there’s a slight difference, I suppose, between holding a copyright in Canada and having Canada recognize an American copyright). But the thrust of your point is well taken and raises the core point: could only a British subject enjoy copyright protection within Canada (whether by means of “holding a copyright in Canada” or otherwise).
At the time, “American authors visited Canada in order to satisfy the more lenient British regulations which permitted copyright protection for books whose authors were within the borders of Britain or its colonies at the time of publication.” See Chapter 9, “American Copyright Piracy,” in B. Zorina Khan, “The Democratization of Invention: Patents and Copyrights in American Economic Development, 1790-1920” (Cambridge University Press, 2004), at pg. 9.14.) This protection possibly could have been obtained during Oliver Cowdery’s visit there in connection with his attempt, with others, to sell the copyright there.
While the “legal research” invited by Mr. Bradley into the question of “whether it a copyright [sic] could have been secured in Kingston” is, in my mind, beside the point and not the appropriate inquiry invited by the text of the revelation (which, at that point, speaks of the sale of the American copyright, not the obtaining of a Canadian copyright), the real issue — “Did the American copyright have value in Canada?” — can indeed probably be discerned by recourse to legal research (which, I repeat, I have not done). It may be that no international treaties then existed providing for reciprocity and it may be that no internal laws of Ontario or of the U.K. applicable to Ontario provided direct protection for foreign authors; but perhaps some other regulations provided some sort of protection (e.g., value in the American copyright), making the trip to Kingston entirely worth pursuing.
Your main inquiry is a valid one: “Why would a British subject be interested in paying for an American work or copyright when he or she was free to publish the work at will without any worry of legal recourse?” Probably because an American, at the time, could indeed go to Canada and publish his work and indeed be protected by Canada’s law (without being a citizen) and thus, by selling his American copyright to one publisher in Canada, he would allow that one Canadian publisher thereby to be entitled to exclude other Canadian publishers from profiting from publishing the work.
As I’ve noted in some preliminary musings above, these questions seem to be, technically, the wrong questions because the revelation speaks generally of securing the copyright “upon all the face of the Earth” but as to Kingston specifically the revelation speaks only of “sell[ing]” a copyright. Nevertheless, putting aside that difference, which may or may not be of some relevance, some preliminary literary and legal research clearly indicates that a copyright could indeed be both obtained (secured) and sold in Kingston.
Prior to 1830 (and since 1814), it appears that at least five publishers—Stephen Miles, Hugh C. Thompson, James McFarlane [also Macfarlane], the Gazette Office, and the Herald Office—had both printed and published at least thirty books and pamphlets in Kingston, Upper Canada. See “Books and Pamphlets Published in Canada, Up To the Year Eighteen Hundred and Thirty-Seven, Copies of Which Are in the Public Refernece Library, Toronto, Canada” (Toronto: Public Library, 1916), pp. 15-39; see also William Kingsford, “The Early Bibliography of the Province of Ontario, Dominion of Canada, With Other Information” (Toronto: Roswell & Hutchison, 1892, and Montreal: Eben Picken, 1892), pp. 27-29, 31-33, 35.
That there purportedly “was no way to secure the copyright at Kingston,” in support of which notion Mr. Bradley cites Hiram Page, seems difficult to credit, what with at least five publishers having published at least 30 publications in Kingston the years prior to 1830. Indeed, the publication by Hugh C. Thomson of Julia Catherine Beckwith Hart’s 1824 piece of fiction, “St. Ursula’s Convent” (fiction, two volumes, 237 pages) and by James Macfarlane of David Chisholme’s “The Lower Canada Watchman” (political book 491 pages) seems adequate evidence of the availability of at least two publishers or printers in Kingston who had the wherewithal to register copyrights, not to mention publish a book the length of the Book of Mormon; clearly those publishers (and most likely all the others) had registered copyrights previous to 1830.
So to answer Mr. Bradley’s first question (“Could copyrights be secured in Kingston?”), it seems clearly that the answer is “yes,” at least to the extent that question is interpreted to ask whether there were the necessary helps in that town to facilitate accomplishment of the task. (This answer happily acquiesces to the questioner’s use of the colloquial, and not incorrect, word “secured”; that is a word commonly used (even in the text of the revelation under discussion) even though, perhaps to make too fine a point, a copyright exists upon publication and is merely registered, not “secured.”) And to answer Mr. Bradley’s related question (“Did one have to do this in Toronto?”), it seems that the answer to that question, too, is “no.” While York (as Toronto was known at the time—from 1793 to 1834) also was replete with publishers, Kingston was not bereft of them.
First, of course, copyrights had value and could be sold. In 1774, the House of Lords decided the case of Donaldson v. Beckett. The issue in that case was whether copyright existed at Common law undisturbed by the Statute of Anne. (8 Anne, c. 19.) Prior to the Statute of Anne, neither statute expressly created nor judicial decision expressly recognized copyright. Nonetheless, authors and printers recognized literary property rights and when statutes and court decisions began to address the question, they indirectly recognized the existence of literary property, both before and after publication, as part of the common law.
Section 1 of the Statute of Anne provided that “From the 10th of April, 1710, the author of any book already printed, who shall not have transferred the right, shall have the sole right and liberty of printing such book for the term of twenty-one years to commence from the said 10th day of April and no longer . . . .” Hence, though a book may already be published, an author retains a valuable property right therein for a period of time. In 1769 the Court of Common Law decided the celebrated case of Millar v. Taylor (4 Burr. 2319). The poet Thomson had published his poem, “The Seasons,” in the years 1726-1730; statutory copyright therefore expired in 1758. Thomson sold the copyright to Millar and in 1763 Taylor pirated the work. In 1766 Millar brought an action against Taylor, which action was heard before Lord Mansfield, O.J., Willes, Yates, and Aston, JJ., and decided in 1769. The judges held by three against one that the copy of a book or literary composition belongs to the author by the common law, and that this common law right of authors to the copies of their own works is not taken away by the Statute of Anne. Thus the first discussion of the matter in Courts of Law resulted in the affirmation of a copyright at common law undisturbed by the statute.
On these answers of the judges, Lord Camden moved the House of Lords to give judgment for the appellant, Donaldson, and against the existence of the common law right. The House of Lords agreed and denied the existence of a perpetual common law copyright, holding that copyright was purely a creation of statute and could be limited in its duration.
Booksellers, who stood to gain the most by the existence of a common law right in perpetuity, immediately went to Parliament for relief. They lost. The next ensuing copyright legislation was not enacted until 1837.
So this was the state of the law, in general terms, in 1830, the time of the revelation. And insofar as concerns the question posed by Mr. Bradley here in this blog, the two salient, important features of copyright law in existence in the realm in 1830 were these: (1) copyright and its duration in England (and in its Dominions, including Upper Canada) was governed by the Statute of Anne, and (2) though a book may already have been published, an author retains a valuable property right therein (in its copyright) for a period of time.
On this latter point it is noteworthy that when on February 28, 1774, the booksellers presented their petition, they complained that in reliance on what they had always understood to be their common law right—confirmed by the case of Millar v. Taylor—they had invested several thousand pounds in the purchase of copyrights. These pepetual-term copyrights were now left unprotected by the Statute of Anne (for they were older than the statutory period allowed for by that act). But in support of their otherwise unsuccessful petition, the booksellers produced as their chief witness a bookseller who testified to the value of copyrights, asserting that in the previous twenty years nearly £66,000 had been paid for copyrights by publishers. Clearly, copyrights had value and could be sold or assigned by sale, gift, bequest, by operation of law, or otherwise. That much was undeniable, regardless whether perpetual copyright protection existed under the common law or whether a limited term copyright protection existed solely under the Statute of Anne.
Hence, the remaining question inspired by Messrs. Bradley and Geisner is whether a copyright to a book could be sold in Upper Canada in the circumstance where the seller of a copyright of the book was a foreigner and the book had already been published in the United States. On this question, the opinion of the Court of King’s Bench in the case of Clementi v. Walker (2 B. & C. 861) is relevant. In the Clementi case, a French author had purported to assign orally [note that: “orally”] to an English subject the exclusive right of printing and publishing a musical composition in England. The court held that the purported assignees did not acquire the exclusive right to publish in England because the purported assignment was oral only and not in writing. The facts were these: Clementi and others were the proprietors of the copyright for a book of musical composition called “Vive Henri Quatrea,” a celebrated French national air. Mr. F. Kalkbrenner composed the music in France in the summer of 1814. Before he came to England, which he did in June of that year, he agreed orally with Mr. Pleyel, a publisher of music in Paris, that Mr. Pleyel should have the right of publishing the music in France only, reserving to himself the right to publication in England. Before it was published in France, Mr. Kalkbrenner left France and went to England. Shortly after Mr. Kalkbrenner arrived in England, on July 12, 1814, he sold the work by an oral agreement. The plaintiffs, purchasers of the work in England, published it there between September 3 and 10, 1814. Meanwhile, the work was not published in France until 1815.
On the 24th of January 1822, Kalkbrenner, being in England, executed an assignment in writing [note: “in writing”] of his copyright in the musical composition in question to the plaintiff agreeably to the terms of sale made by him to them in 1814. The defendant sold a copy of the work in question to Mr. Lindsey on the 20th of February, l822, at his shop in London, for two shillings. Each copy was on English paper and from an English engraving. The Son of the defendant, in 1818, parchased a copy of the composition published by Pleyel at a shop in France, with a number of others by the same author, which the defendant caused to be engraved and published in England, in December, 1818. The defendant’s edition was a facsimile of the copy so purchased by his son, and there was no difference between that edition and the edition published and sold by the plaintiffs in England. There is a register kept at Paris, and by the law of France all musical publications must be registered, and a copy of the said composition was duly registered and deposited there on the 17th of June, 1814. The defendant’s son never heard or saw the composition until he saw it at the shop in Paris in 1818.
The plaintiffs insisted that they, as the proprietors of the copyright, were entitled to recover. They argued that the statute (8 Anne, c. 19) gave the sole right of printing any book to the author or his assignee for fourteen years, “to commence from the day of his first publishing the same.” Argued the plaintiffs, the right vested in the author in 1814 (when the book was first published in England and continued in the author until he executed a valid assignment of it to the plaintiff in 1822; and there being a sale of a copy of the work after that period by the defendant, a good right of action thereby accrued to the plaintiff.
Clearly, therefore, the reason the plaintiffs could not sue was only because they did not have a valid assignment granting unto them “the privileges conferred upon authors by the legislature.” Note otherwise that the court does, indeed, recognize that in this inter-country fact situation, the legislature (by the Statute of Anne) was—but for the faulty assignmentvviewed as having conferred copyright privileges on the author. And, to be clear, in this case the author had composed the music in France and then had gone to England to cause it to be published in England (albeit by others to whom he had attempted to make what ultimately was a mistakenly invalid oral assignment).
So in Clementi v. Walker, the plaintiffs were those who purportedly received an assignment in 1814 and sought in 1822 to enforce a copyright under which the author had delayed publication. That clearly was not the situation with the Prophet Joseph Smith. First, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that any assignment (in his case, assignment by sale) of a copyright was to be oral instead of in writing. To argue otherwise is to argue from silence; such a fact was, at the time of the recordation of the revelation, a yet-future conditional event. And second, the Book of Mormon had first been announced for publication on March 26, 1830; the revelation under consideration was received in early 1830. Absent a faulty assignment (sale) in the Prophet’s situation and absent delay in seeking publication in Upper Canada, what the court in Clementi otherwise would have ruled would be the same rule applicable here: an author who published abroad (be it France or America) can publish in England (or one of its Dominions) and obtain copyright protection under the Statute of Anne.
Mr. Geisner recently states (see his October 16, 2009 posting) that from his “research only British subjects could hold copyright in Canada.” Not so. In Tonson v. Collins, 1 Wm. Blackstone 301, 96 Eng. Rep. 169 (1761), the question of copyright was carefully considered, and even Mr. Thurlow, in arguiug against it, admitted that “it is of no consequence whether the author is a natural-born subject, because this right of property, if any, is personal, and may be acquired by aliens.” And on this point, it should be remembered that it was property (“a copyright”) that the emissaries of the Prophet were sent to sell. And further, discussing Clementi v. Walker (a case that predates the 1842 Copyright Act), the House of Lords had the following to say about Clementi in the case of Jefferys v. Boosey (4 H.L.C. 815) (a case that postdates the 1842 Copyright Act), where the Jeffreys case justices stated that the decision arrived at in Clementi “could not have occurred if the fact of the author being a foreigner had been an answer to the claim.” In other words, if it were as simple as saying in the Clementi case that the French author should lose the case merely because he was foreign, then the court would have been hard pressed to come up with the more elaborate ruling that it did come up with to the effect that the faulty attempted oral assignment and the delay in publication were the reasons the plaintiffs failed.
As pointed out by Mr. Justice Williams, in 1835 the law was changed (in the case of D’Almaine v. Boosey (4 Younge & C. Exch. 424)), such that copyright could not be gained by a foreign author who was resident abroad at the time of the publication. See 4 H.L.C. at 859-860. (The Jefferys case was decided under the Copyright Act of 1842 and under that act made clear that non-resident foreigners obtained no copyright within the realm. Earlier it had not been so.) Therefore, Mr. Geisner’s statement that in 1830 “only British subjects could hold copyright in Canada” must yield to the very clear dictates of English law, which hold the opposite. And that law did not change with the adoption of the Copyright Act of 1842, for in the 1854 case of Routledge v. Low (4 H. L. C. 815), the court held that a foreign author who was resident even for a few days in Canada, having gone there expressly for the purpose of acquiring copyright while her book was published in London, nevertheless was an author within the Act, whose literary work could qualify for copyright protection, a proposition which had not been disputed in Jefferys v. Boosey.
It appears quite clear that the revelation’s command “ye shall go to Kingston” and the revelation’s announcement of a grant unto the Prophet of “a privelige that he may sell a copyright” through Oliver Cowdery, Joseph Knight, Hiram Page and Josiah Stowell “for the four Provinces” are a command and announcment wholly consistent with the historical and legal context: the literary resources were available in Kingston, the legal context justified the mission, and the historical context is consistent with the revelation. To the extent that any legal research is needed to ascertain whether it was or “wasn’t even possible to secure a copyright at the place they’d been sent to do it” (Mr. Bradley’s words), whether “copyrights could be secured in Kingston” (Mr. Bradley’s words), and whether “only British subjects could hold copyright in Canada” (Mr. Geisner’s words), it would seem that the answers are clear: a copyright could be secured in Kingston (and, of course, it could be sold there, as the revelation gave the Prophet a “privelige” to do), and this all could be accomplished notwithstanding the Prophet was not a British citizen and perhaps also notwithstanding he personally was not there at the time of sale (he could have made plans to be there at the time of printing or publication or both, later). In short, the revelation is entirely consistent with history, law, and religious principles (meaning the conditional nature of the revelation—“if ye do this”; “if the People harden not their hearts”; “if ye are faithful”).
Well done Mr. Ehat! I hope you will publish your findings.
Stephen, unlike a few others, I found that your comments were not “gobbledygook” at all, they were very interesting and directly relevant to the conversation. Well done.
So, contrary to Mr. Ehat’s assertion, British copyright laws did *not* apply in Canada in 1830. And there was no Canadian copyright law enacted until 1832.
“There were territorial loopholes in the 1710 Act. It did not extend to all British territories, but only covered England, Scotland and Wales.
Many reprints of British copyright works were consequently issued both in Ireland and in North American colonies, without any license from the copyright holder required.
In light of this, what copyright could have been obtained in Canada in 1830 that could have been sold to anyone that would have granted them exclusive rights to publish and sell the Book of Mormon in Canada?
The link supplied by Mr. RetroProphet, given to provide the reader of this blog with a source for his first quotation, is a link that leads the reader to page 238 of the September 1868 issue of “The Canada Law Journal” (Vol. 4, N. S.). That month the Journal printed the 1868 opinion of the House of Lords in the case of Routledge v. Low. That case was decided under the Copyright Act of 1842 (5 & 6 Vict. c. 45). Mr. RetroProphet’s quotation is not found on the page to which he links the reader (page 238), even though that page is the one he expressly cites to in the text of his blog contribution. Rather, when one reads the entire report — including the statement of facts on pages 229-230, the arguments of counsel for the appellants on page 230, the arguments of counsel for the respondents on page 230, and the opinion of the Lord Chancellor on pages 230-232, the opinion of Lord Cranworth on pages 232-233, the opinion of Lord Chemlsford on pages 233-234, the opinion of Lord Westbury on pages 234-235, and the opinion of Lord Colonsay on page 235) — one finds Mr. RetroProphet’s quotation to be a quotation taken from page 231 (part of the opinion of the Lord Chancellor), not from page 238 (part of the opinion of Lord Chelmsford).
I note, however, that there is one difference from the text as originally penned by the Lord Chancellor and as “quoted” by Mr. RetroProphet. That difference is the parenthetical “(1854)”. That parenthetical is not in the original. It has been supplied by Mr. RetroProphet. And, it so happens, it is wrong. If there is to be any parenthetical attached to a citation to “54 Geo. 3, c. 156” it should be “1814,” not “1854.” “54 Geo. 3, c. 156” is a citation for the amendment of the Statute of Anne that was enacted in 1814, not in 1854. See, e.g., Justin Hughes, “Copyright and Incomplete Historiographies: Of Piracy, Propertization, and Thomas Jefferson” (Southern California Law Review, vo. 79, pp. 993 et seq., 2006), Cardozo Legal Studies Research Paper No. 166. If Mr. RetroProphet had read, for example, the Clementi v. Walker opinion (issued in 1824) (cited above, in this blog) he might have noticed that that 1824 opinion cites to “54 Geo. 3, c. 156,” enacted in 1814, and not in 1854, thirty years after Clementi.
Mr. RetroProphet, perhaps, has a conclusion in mind and wants his “quotation” to support that conclusion. That is the only impetus I can perceive in his having chosen to add a parenthetical to the quotation and to have chosen to use the year “1854” inside his parenthetical.
Mr. RetroProphet’s second quotation (“There were territorial loopholes in the 1710 Act. It did not extend to all British territories, but only covered England, Scotland and Wales”) comes from George Johnson, “A Brief History of Copyright Law,” in “The Active Author’s Copyright Compendium,” Vol. 1 (ResearchCopyright.com, n.d.), page 10. Anyone who reads Mr. Johnson’s “Brief Hisotry” will note not only that he covers the history of copyright from the 1300s to the 1880s in a mere three pages (!), but also that he jumps (necessarily) directly from 1801 to 1886, blowing right past 1814, without mention of 54 Geo. III, ch. 156. Mr. Johnson is neither a historian nor an attorney. Mr. Johnson’s “Brief History,” indeed, is quite brief (and when used as a source to discuss what copyright law was in Canada in 1830, his write up is simply and wholly inadequate).
Mr. RetroProphet’s third quotation (“Many reprints of British copyright works were consequently issued both in Ireland and in North American colonies, without any license from the copyright holder required”) comes from that same page in that same source. The quotation pertains to the 1700s and deals with the well-known practice of reprints. The quotation is inapposite and beside the point.
Mr. RetroProphet’s fourth quotation (“The Irish also made a flourishing business of shipping reprints to North America in the 18th century. Ireland’s ability to reprint freely ended in 1801 when Ireland’s Parliament merged with Great Britain, and the Irish became subject to British copyright laws”) also comes from that sames source, page 11. That quotation, too, is inapposite and beside the point.
Mr. RetroProphet, no doubt, will look for other items to prove his point (or perhaps some other point). We await.
Well, that was a rookie error, wasn’t it? I apologize to Mr. Ehat and thank him for his tutorial.
Mr. Geisner and Mr. RetroProphet have raised helpful questions that help refine the dialogue on the issues raised. Mr. RetroProphet remarkably apologizes for what he calls “a rookie error.” Well, “rookie” or not, that’s the sign of a mature person to make a public acknowledgement of error. To the extent that I can accept the apology on behalf of other readers, apology accepted; no offense taken.
All my other musings in that October 16, 2009 post are pretty much useless musings except for the bottom-line point (which, again, should be worded as follows, changing the “the” to an “a” to make it read “sell a copyright”): “The way the Prophet sought to protect his and the Church’s interest in the rights to publishing the Book of Mormon was essentially the only way: sell a copyright to a publisher in Canada.” That would entail obtaining a copyright anywhere in Upper Canada and attempting to sell it in Kingston.
2. Joe Geisner referred to my first post as “gobbledygook.” He’s right. I’m an attorney. I can’t help myself.
I was also similarly imprecise later in that same posting: the text of the revelation speaks of the sale of a copyright (meaning a Canadian copyright, not the American copyright), and the obtaining of a copyright everywhere, presumably including also a copyright in Canada and the attempt to sell in Kingston such a copyright. The real issue was not, as I stated, “Did the American copyright have value in Canada?” (we were not talking about reciprocity) but, rather, did the Prophet’s emissaries have the ability, under the law applicable at the time, to obtain in Upper Canada (or anywhere in one of the four provinces) a copyright enforceable in the four provinces even though the book already was about to be published in America pursuant to the registration of a copyright in America?
4. In my October 20, 2009 post, I present for the first time the first results of any actual legal research on the question posed (even though not accurately stated in the prior posts). In that post, I quote Mr. Bradley, who states both that Hiram Page “notes that there was no way to secure the copyright at Kingston, as they had been sent to do” [the revelation speaks of selling it there, not securing it there] and that “the real issue with the revelation was not that the sale did not occur but that it (reportedly) wasn’t even possible to secure a copyright at the place they’d been sent to do it” [same]. From that point forward, the discussion deals with legal questions (as framed by Mr. Bradley): “Was it even possible (legally) to secure a copyright at the place they’d been sent to do it?” and “What was the law of the time?” The balance of that post presents legal research to support the conclusion that indeed in 1830 a copyright could, indeed, be obtained in Upper Canada for a work published in America. And of course intangible personal property could be sold in Kingston as well as in any other place and no “authorization” was necessary for a buyer to complete such a transaction.
5. Mr. RetroProphet’s October 23, 2009 post attempted to quote (albeit inaccurately but nonetheless, for our purposes, helpfully) from a case I had cited in my October 20, 2009 post (Mr. RetroProphet misquoting it as follows: “The original Copyright Act (the 8 Anne, c. 19) protected copyright throughout Great Britain. The 43 Geo. 3, c.107 (1843), extended this protection over the whole of the United Kingdom and the British dominions in Europe. The 54 Geo. 3, c. 156 (1854), extended the protection still further over the whole of the British dominion.”) The anture of the misquotation is the addition of two, not one, parentheticals after two, not one, citations. I probably could have also pointed out that the citation to “43 Geo. 3, c. 107” should not have had a parenthetical added (“(1843)”) and, to boot, I probably should have clarified that the citation itself (that Mr. RetroProphet otherwise correctely quoted from the printed source material (“43 Geo. 3, c.107”) was erroneous in the original and all subsequent reports of the Lord Chancellor’s opinion. That citation actually should be “41 Geo. 3, c. 107” (and, of course, if there was to be any parenthetical after that citation, it would be “(1801),” as otherwise was clear from the balance of my discussion). That’s a small point, but when citing cases, it’s important for discussion to be accurate.
My suspicion is that when Hiram Page stated in his 1848 letter to McLellin that “there was no purchaser” in Kingston, he was right (at least to the extent that he meant there was no willing purchaser). Clearly, there were publishers in Kingston (see my October 20 post). And my suspicion also is that when Hiram Page stated in that letter that no one was “authorized at Kingston to buy rights for the province” and that “little York was the place where such business had to be done,” he probably was merely reporting the thanks-but-no-thanks reception the emmisaries received, not an accurate reflection of what the law allowed.
I apologize for my tardiness in responding to the discussion.
Thank you very much for the thoughtful and informative comments. You have advanced the discussion further than I believed possible and I would like to thank you for this. The research you have provided should help in our understanding of copyright in Canada. Again thank you for this work and the time you have spent researching this subject.
Personally I have a bit different take on the court rulings, but it appears nothing is as clear cut as one would hope.
Again, thank you for taking the time to present the information in the Clementi v. Walker case. I hope we can continue the discussion as further information becomes available.
Perhaps after Smith’s men received an expression of no interest on the part of a Kingston publisher, they asked, “Well, would you be able to arrange for us to register a copyright for the Provence?” After all, they had been told to secure the copyright, and perhaps had in mind registering a copyright for the provinces absent a sale, and in advance of publication, precisely as Smith had done previously in the United States.
I’d like to suggest the possibility that “neither were they authorized at Kingston to buy rights for the Provence; but little York was the place where such business had to be done.” referred to the question of how a copyright needed to be registered. Considering that York was the seat of government for Upper Canada, perhaps anybody who wished to file the necessary paperwork, whether it was a Canadian publisher or an American, needed to do so at government offices in York.
Submitted for consideration, with all due humility, of course.
Has anyone considered the broader question of why an all-powerful God, presumably capable of protecting his own work by his own power, would even need to secure a copyright in the first place? It seems uncharacteristic of God rely upon man-made laws governing possession for his own protection. I can think of no reason why God would need a copyright, but I can think of many reasons why men would want it. I don’t fault any man for wanting to secure a copyright for the work; what I question is why a revelation was even needed for this action.
Scott, God isn’t ruling on the earth right now, otherwise a lot of bad things that have happened and are happening would not have happened or be happening. We have to live under man’s laws.
I just became aware of your responses to my questions and wanted to make a few comments.
First, thank you for providing some legal context. Although I find it odd that you state that such context is not necessary as you provide it, I appreciate the effort you took to provide it.
Second, please cite my comments as being from the Mormon Apologetics and Discussion Board on which I posted them, rather than the Mormon Research Ministry site that has appropriated them from that board.
Third, in light of MRM’s use of *part* of my MAD posting, I’d like to point out that my comments on the board end by giving my view of how the Canadian copyright revelation can be viewed as divine in origin *even if* legal research *were* to show that the copyright business legally could not be done in Kingston–i.e., I don’t see Joseph Smith’s prophethood being at stake over the issue.
Fourth, I think you have offered research that suggests the scenario I had in mind–that of needing to secure a legal copyright before selling rights of publication–may simply be wrong, which would change the issues at hand considerably. However, given the admittedly provisional nature of your research, I believe the legal questions surrounding the revelation remain open and will continue to unless or until someone (perhaps you) does a detailed study on the matter.
Fifth, I think the records left to us suggest that the participants in this event did believe there was a legal requirement to transact copyright business in Toronto. When Page says that the “business” of “buying rights for the province” “had to be done” at Little York, I can’t help seeing this as referring to a legal issue and not simply failure to sell. It would not follow from the mere absence of buyers in Kingston that the sale “had to be done” in Little York, or in any other *particular* place. In that case, buyers might be found anywhere, and not in Little York only. Thus, so far as I can see, Page is referring to something other than an absence of buyers: he *believes* there is a law requiring the business to be transacted in Little York. The editors of the revelation appear to similarly believe something was amiss with the revelation sending them to Kingston, or so the pattern of their edits would suggest–as I laid out on MAD.
However, I would incline away from such a conclusion unless I were quite certain about the applicable law. The officials and printers with whom I must assume Page, Cowdery, Knight, and Stowell spoke should have understood copyright law in their province. And it seems to me highly unlikely that disparate individuals colluded to mislead these strangers who came to them to sell rights to a book.
So, unless or until I see legal scholarship nailing down the applicable law of that place and time, I would incline toward believing the stated opinion of those with whom Page, et al. spoke–that the business he and the others sought to transact could only be done at Little York.
Perhaps an adequate legal study will be done on the issue. Perhaps not. But whichever way the legal evidence comes out–if it ever gets adequately sorted out, I’m satisfied that Joseph Smith’s prophethood does not stand or fall on this issue.

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