The Copyright Question

A Letter to the Toronto Board of Trade

By

GEORGE N. MORANG

Toronto

George N. Morang & Company, Limited

1902

BROWN-SEARLE PRINTING COMPANY

89 Wellington St. West

The Copyright Question

TORONTO, FEBRUARY 19, 1902

The Secretary,
The Board of Trade,
Toronto

SIR—

The Council of the Board of Trade lately adopted a resolution asking that Canadian Legislation be passed, giving effect to the Copyright Bill proposed in 1895 by Mr. Hall Caine, "making it obligatory that a book shall be printed and bound in this country in order to secure Canadian copyright, and continue to be so printed and bound in order to retain such copyright, and that upon failure to print in Canada within a reasonable time, provision shall be made by which the Government may issue to a Canadian publisher a license to print in Canada, subject to such safeguards as will secure to the owner of such book a reasonable royalty upon his work." The resolution is to be forwarded to the Boards of Trade of other cities in Canada, together with the request that they join in representations to the Government asking their consideration of this important question, and urging the passing of this legislation.

This resolution emanated from the Wholesale Booksellers' Section of the Board of Trade, of which Mr. W.J. Gage is the Chairman. The Report of this Section presented to the Board recites, that in 1895 Mr. Hall Caine came to this country, the duly accredited representative of English authors, accompanied by Mr. Daldy, representing the English publishers, and that after a conference with Canadian publishers, papermakers, printers and bookbinders, a draft Bill was completed, which Mr. Hall Caine announced to the Canadian Government as containing an understanding reached with the Canadian publishers, and to which Mr. Daldy, on behalf of the English publishers, consented. These statements were made in the Report of the Section, notwithstanding the fact that at a Committee meeting composed of its members held last year, I read a letter from the Secretary of the British Society of Authors stating that Mr. Hall Caine's proposed Bill had never received the approval of the Society; and although at the same meeting I stated that Mr. Daldy had informed me he had never consented to the Bill. After the Report of the action of the Board of Trade reached England, Mr. Daldy addressed a letter to "The Publishers' Circular," from which I quote:—

I was absent from Toronto when the Booksellers' Section framed and passed its Report, and only returned to Toronto after it had been adopted at the meeting of the Council of the Board. Knowing that the Council was being misled, I communicated with the President and requested that I might be heard before the Council, offering to explain the copyright question, which I knew was little understood by the members, of whom only two or three are publishers. The President frankly admitted to me that he had not investigated the question, and told me he would bring my request before the next meeting of the Council. I was somewhat surprised to receive a letter from the President a few days afterwards declining to allow me to be heard, and still more surprised to read that in his annual address to the Board, delivered four days later, he energetically pressed upon the Board the necessity for the legislation referred to in the resolution of the Council.

I therefore take this means of presenting the true position of literary copyright in Canada, a subject which is but little understood, and upon which the Executive and the Council apparently did not desire enlightenment.

Under the British Copyright Laws, which extend to Canada, a British or Canadian author of a literary work has the undisputed right to his manuscript; he may withhold, or he may communicate it, and in communicating it he may limit the number of persons to whom it is imparted, and impose such restrictions as he pleases upon the use and printing of the work. Foreign reprints of such a work cannot be imported into Canada. Canadian publishers are just as free to deal with authors under the British Copyright Laws as publishers in the United Kingdom, and are, therefore, on the same footing as the British publishers.

Prior to 1847, it was a common complaint in Canada that, owing to the provisions of the Imperial Copyright Act, a sufficient supply of English literature could not be obtained, whilst the reading public in the United States were well supplied with the best English books in cheap form. To remove this ground of complaint, the Imperial Parliament passed the Foreign Reprints Act (1847), under which Canada was permitted to import cheap pirated editions of British works produced in the United States, on an undertaking to collect a Customs duty thereon of 12-1/2 per cent., which was to be paid over to the British Government for the benefit of the authors interested. The results of this legislation were unsatisfactory to the British authors, few of whom received any benefit under the provisions of the Act. The sums collected were ridiculously small. In 1894, they amounted to $1,433.66, and in 1895, to $2,211.33. Whilst the arrangement was in existence, British copyright works were openly printed in the United States, and imported into Canada without payment of the duty, to the exclusion of British editions. So long as this arrangement remained in force, a British copyright owner could not prevent the importation into Canada of pirated editions of his work, unless he reprinted the work in Canada and copyrighted it under the Canadian copyright laws. The arrangement was terminated by the Canadian Parliament in 1895 at the instance of Sir John Thompson.

Every lover of books will remember that during the continuance of the arrangement, a Canadian Publishing Trade hardly existed, and that the reading public who bought books were compelled in a great measure to satisfy themselves with American reprints, of so little value that specimens of them are now regarded almost as curiosities.

Prior to 1887, a Canadian author was entitled to little protection under the Copyright Laws of European countries, and prior to 1891 was entitled to no protection whatever under the Copyright Laws of the United States. In 1886 the Imperial Parliament passed an Act which provides in effect, that the British Copyright Acts shall apply to a book first produced in Canada or any other British possession, in like manner as they apply to a work first produced in the United Kingdom. If the book is copyrighted at Ottawa, a certificate of registration signed by the Minister of Agriculture is proof in all Courts throughout the Empire of the existence of such copyright. No registration in England is required.

In 1887, a comparatively uniform system of International Copyright was established under the Berne Convention, which applies to the British Empire, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Norway, Japan, Luxembourg, Monaco, Tunis, Hayti and Montenegro. These countries comprise what is called, "The Copyright Union." Under this Convention Canadian authors enjoy in the other countries of the Union for their works—whether published in one of those