In restricting that family to twenty-two children you
are merely conferring discomfort and unhappiness on one family per year
in a nation of 88,000,000, which is not worth while."
It is the very same with copyright. One author per year produces a book
which can outlive the forty-two-year limit; that's all. This nation
can't produce two authors a year that can do it; the thing is
demonstrably impossible. All that the limited copyright can do is to
take the bread out of the mouths of the children of that one author per
year.
I made an estimate some years ago, when I appeared before a committee of
the House of Lords, that we had published in this country since the
Declaration of Independence 220,000 books. They have all gone. They had
all perished before they were ten years old. It is only one book in 1000
that can outlive the forty-two year limit. Therefore why put a limit at
all? You might as well limit the family to twenty-two children.
If you recall the Americans in the nineteenth century who wrote books
that lived forty-two years you will have to begin with Cooper; you can
follow with Washington Irving, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Edgar Allan Poe,
and there you have to wait a long time.
Pages:
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321