Read Ebook: The Copyright Question: A Letter to the Toronto Board of Trade by Morang George N George Nathaniel

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The Canadian publishers are now secured in the possession of their own market when once they have acquired a license from a British copyright owner, and have reproduced the work in Canada. Canadian printed editions of Rudyard Kipling, George Eliot, Francis Parkman, and of scores of others may now exclusively be dealt in by the Canadian book-selling trade. Prominent American publishers have told me repeatedly that our Canadian Copyright Law as it stands, is superior to anything they have had in the United States for the benefit and encouragement of publishing.

It was once the custom for the English author, when dealing with the American publisher, to throw in Canada as an inducement to complete the deal. Mr. Thomas in his address to which I have referred stated that this is still the custom. Mr. Thomas knows better than this, for, whilst this was undoubtedly the custom some years ago when Canada and her trade were little known or regarded in England, it is not the custom now. Rudyard Kipling, Hall Caine, Benjamin Kidd, Crockett, Doyle, Hope, Parker, Miss Fowler, Miss Cholmondeley, Miss Montresor, Marie Corelli, all now deal with Canada as a separate market, and contract directly with Canadian publishers. This custom is growing rapidly and more books are now directly offered to Canadian publishers than can be safely taken, having regard to the present state of the market.

Those who at present comprise a majority of the Booksellers' Section of the Board of Trade desire to have a Canadian copyright law of their own, to secure authority which will enable the Canadian Parliament to pass an Act which would separate Canadians from the rule of British copyright legislation, and necessarily, too, from its benefits. It goes without saying that if this is effectuated Canada will be excluded from the Copyright Union and also from protection in the vast market of the United States; and as a further consequence the works of Canadian authors would again become public property outside of Canada, and the British publisher would surely retaliate.

Were the proposals of the Board of Trade carried into effect, it would reduce our country below the standard of national morality and of international fair play maintained by all other civilized nations now united in the Copyright Union. Canadian authors would then encounter the same difficulty in securing recognition at the hands of Canadian publishers that American authors experienced with their publishers prior to 1891, when British books could be published in the United States without payment of royalty.

I maintain that the subject of copyright is abstruse, and is not to be mastered in a few days or in a few months. Long as this letter is, I have stated only a single phase of the question. I could better have dealt with the matter in a short address, and I very much regret that the Executive of the Council did not afford me the opportunity of appearing before them when I asked it. Had this been done, I feel satisfied that the Board would not have been committed to the proposals the Council are now engaged in advancing, nor would the Board have been subjected in England, as it already has been, to the criticisms of those who understand the copyright question, and with some indignation resent the course of the Board in advancing reasons for its action which are not in accordance with the real facts.

I am, Sir, Yours truly, GEORGE N. MORANG

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