INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. [From the New York Herald.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 827, 6 July 1853, Page 4

INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. [From the New York Herald.]

We are at length enabled to congratulate our readers on the prospect of a speedy settlement of the international copyright question. -Among the docnments which arrived in the Africa, and for which she was detained twenty- four hours at Liverpool, hy the British Government, is said to be a project of a copyright treaty between Great Britain and this country. It had been executed at Marshfield, by the late Daniel Webster and Mr. Crampton, the British Minister, a short while before the last illness of the former ; and having beea returned from England with the sanction and approval of the British Government, is now probably under the consideration of Mr. Everett and Mr. Cramplon. The presence of Mr. Washington Irving at the capital is perhaps not unconnected with the negotiation, and it is more than likelj that nothing is now wanting but the ratification of the Senate to convert it into a Jaw. We understand that its provisions are similar to those of the international copyright treaty executed between France and England, 13 months ago, and are fully adequate to protect the rights of authors and artists in both countries. Under' its authority, the authors ol "books, of dramatic works, of musical compositions, ' of drawings, of paintings, of sculptures, of engravings, of litho-i graphs, and of any other works whatsoever of literature and the fine arts," published and copyrighted in the United States, will, ipsofactOi enjoy all the rights and privileges which an English copyright would insure to them in Great Britain, and in like manner, a British copyright will possess the same legal authority in the United States as an entry in the clerk's office of the district court, pursuant to an Act of Congress. The only conditions imposed on American authors are the registration of their copyright in Stationers-hall, and a strict compliance with the laws of Great Britain in respect to the deposit of a copy of their work in the British Museum ; while their English brethren must register at Washington, and deposit copies of their works in the institutions appointed bylaw to receive them. The copyright ot a translation of a work in a foreign language will, on compliance with these formalities, enjoy the same validity in both countries as that of an original work, without,^ of course interfering with the right of any other party to translate the same work. The republication of articles in periodicals may be prohibited by a conspicuous notice affixed to the article, notifying the public that the author or publisher reserves the property of the same. Such are, as we understand, the leading provisions of a treaty the importance of which is' hardly less than that of any of the numerous international conventions this country has ever concluded. Ihe moment it becomes a law, the system of wholesale piracy on which the publishers of both countries have been fattening for so many years will be uprooted. The poets and historians of England will at length enjoy the same protection that is vouchsafed to the grocer and the tailor ; j and the talented band of young Americans, who are nobly competing for the palm of literature with their Transatlantic brethren, may continue the struggle without feaT of the ghouls of Pater-noster-row. Crushed though they have hitherto been by competition with writers of at least equal merit, and whose works did not cost the publisher : a cent, they have earned a world- wide fame, and pressed their rivals so closely that the leading critic of England was impelled to warn his countrymen of their -danger. What will they not do in a fair field, when remunerative prices are paid for their labour, and their competitors enter the lists on the same footing as themselves ? Proudly indeed, may we look forward to a new era in our literature — an era possibly in which New York may become the great publishing • mart for the modern classics of our language, and the fame of a Macaulay, a Tennyson, and a Dickens, may be overshadowed by countrymen of ours. Such a stimulus will international copyright give to American literature. Nor is the new law less pregnant with moral results. It will remove the stain of piracy which has so long disgraced the publishers of America, and will compel that estimable fraternity to show the same regard to the property of others that they claim for their own. We shall no longer witness the Messrs. Appleton appropriating the froits of the mechanical labours of scientific Englishmen, or Mr. Putnam making a monthly razzia of the wit and fancy of British authors. Messrs. Stringer and Townsend will learn with dismay that the fund of novels into which they have been plunging a 'lawless hand for this many a year is henceforth under the same watch as their own cashbox, and that depredations upon the one will be punished as severely as larcenies from the othe* Mr. Redfield will be denied the lucrative amusement of cooking up English books to suit an American, palate ; and even the Harpers will be forced to be honest. Conceive, kind reader, the consternation among the Wileys, the Longs, the Dewitts and Davenports, the Bunnels and Rices, the Carltons and Phillipses, the Bunces, the Blanciiard and Leas, ct hoc genus omne of small fry, when they are told that the old saw about " picking and stealing " is henceforth to be construed literally against them, and that, if they will publish, they must buy an author's work, and not rob him by the wayside. Picture their indignation when they are compelled to take notice that an author's brains are not necessarily common property, which anyone who pleases may filch. Fancy the bewilderment of the men who would send a ragged boy to the Tombs for stealing a pirated edition of a tenpenny novel, or a clerk to the States prison for helping himself to a slight per centage on the profits of the last theft of Mr. Dickens', or Mr. Thackeray's, or Mr. Kingsley's brains, when they are informed that they, too, are under the law, and can no longer lead the life of literary pickpockets with impunity. But we are wasting time on. an unimportant view "of the question. What the American publishers have been, and what they may be under the new regime, matters very little to anybody but themselves ; and, except for the stigma their piracies have brought on the community, they would not have been entitled to the notoriety a newspaper attack may bestow*. It is to the great benefit which the international copyright

law will coofer upon American literature that we would chiefly direct public attention. And on this head onr readers need little information from us. A single hint will suggest more tb*n our space permits us to express. It is notorious that we bare been hitherto swamped by English books. The price of literary matter has not been sufficiently remunerative to enable authors to live. When Jeffrey, Alison, and Hood could be had for nothing, he was a bold man who would pay Emerson, Bancroft, or ' Holmes for j their manuscript. The consequence has been, that men who would have reflected honour on their country, had they devoted themselves to literary pursuits, have been compelled to fritter away their genius in the routine of trade. Again the waot of that protection which the Government has liberally awarded to every branch of material industry has been a sad obstacle to the growth of a national literature. Cheap editions of English works have been widely circulated through the country, and thousands who. could not afford to purchase our own authors have modelled their minds on the writings of foreigners. The practical result of the absence of an international copyright has been to, impose a prohibitory tax on American authors for the benefit of their English rivals ; and while we have been successfully struggling might" 'and main to surpass the rest of the world in trade, science, mechanics, and everything which contributes to material progress, we have^ really done all we could io keep ourselves far. behind our neighbours in the highest of intellectual pursuits. To the senators does it belong now to give the finishing blow. In this state of things -they will not shrink, we are sure,- from, their duty. Theirs will be no small share of the honour of removing the millstone from the- neck of American literature — theirs the pride of redeeming the reputation of their country. In after years, when, perchance, American authors will stand as high in England as English authors do bere, the historian of literature will point to the year 1853 as the real date at which the English language began to be written with more purity and more. force on this than on the other side of the Atlantic, and in commemorating the auspicious event will pass a well merited eulogy on each individual who, by his voice or his vote, contributed to confer this boon on his native land. At that distant period the ephemeral reputations built on passing events of to-day will have vanished — compromises, Cuban annexation, the Monroe doctrine, internal improvements, may all be forgotten, with those who fought on either side. But no one who took an active part in support of the international copyright law need fear oblivion — he will be remembered as long as these United States possess a language and a literature. Never was a seat in the Senate moie truly enviable.