Book Details Transition From Poor Protection For Foreign Works In 19th Century US

By Catherine Saez

A new book by a United States law professor offers an intricate look at the historical relationship between literacy, copyrights and the public domain in the US.

The book, titled “Without Copyrights – Piracy, Publishing, and the Public Domain,” written by Robert Spoo, Chapman Distinguished Chair at the University of Tulsa College of Law, looks in particular at the fate in the United States of works published abroad since the inception of the American copyright law in 1790.

The first chapter of the book describes “the founding rules of a protectionist copyright law that openly encouraged the unauthorized reprinting of new foreign works … and set in motion a counter-practice of self-restraint among American publishers that came to be called the courtesy of the trade.” This practice allowed that “the first publisher to announce plans to issue an American edition of an unprotected foreign work acquired informal title to that work.”

According to the author, the legacy of 19th century practices shaped the production and the “consumption of modernism” in the US into the 20th century, and many foreign-domiciled authors’ works were incorporated into the American public domain, encouraged by the burdensome US formalities, such as the manufacturing clause.

The accession in 1989 of the United States to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works changed the story, as “laws have been enacted and upheld, that restore protection to foreign works,” the author said.

The book is published by Oxford University Press.