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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O.
885 5 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
Miscellaneous. No. 61.
Printed for the use of the Colonial Office.
JAMES BRYCE, Esq., M.P., to JOHN BRAMSTON, Esq., C.B. MY DEAR MR. BRAMSTON,
Foreign Office, April 8, 1886.
Ir seems desirable to convey to your Office, for the information of the Colonial authorities and Agents General, the reasons which have led to the introduction of the International and Colonial Copyright Bill in its present form.
Mr. Jenkyn's Memorandum of April 3 on the Bill so clearly explains the objects and legal effect of the measure that I need only advert shortly to what may be called its policy.
Her Majesty was represented at the International Conferences held at Berne in 1884 and 1885 for the establishment of an International Copyright Union, and it now becomes important, in view of declarations made by the late and present Government, that the Convention should be signed next September, so as to bring Her Dominions within the Union.
When the Bill necessary to enable Her Majesty to do this was being prepared, the question arose, for which of Her Colonial and Indian possessions should She enter the Union? They are all included in the existing Copyright Treaties, and it was therefore thought proper to give them the opportunity of entering, and thereby securing protec tion for their own authors. In case, however, any Colony should prefer to be excepted from the Convention it is proposed to permit it to stand aloof, and clause 9 has been drawn to enable it to do so if so minded, while clause 10 would give the means of its retiring at any later time.
The question next arose whether it was not desirable to take this opportunity of dealing with copyright as between different parts of Her Majesty's dominions. It appeared inconsistent to create reciprocal rights between Great Britain and foreign countries, and not provide for such rights as between different Colonies; and it was thought important to remedy at once an injustice in the law which had long been complained of, viz., that which denies copyright in the United Kingdom to an author who first publishes his book in a Colony, while allowing it throughout the whole British Empire to an author who first publishes in the United Kingdom.
This suggested the framing of clause 8 (sub-sections 1 and 2), which gives to the author of a book first produced anywhere in the Queen's dominions copyright throughout the whole Empire, and which will therefore prevent the growth of any intercolonial piracy, whereby an author publishing in one Colony might be deprived by a publisher in the United Kingdom or some other Colony of the reasonable reward of his labours.
Another part of this clause (sub-section 3), however, enables special provision to be made for the case of a Colony which has already legislated on copyright; and the last- part (sub-section 4) secures to a Colony the right of legislating for the copyright, within its own limits, of books first published therein.
It has been suggested that possibly some Colonies might prefer to have the now subsisting Imperial copyright (i.e., the Acts which give a British author copyright in the Colonies as well as in the United Kingdom) repealed, so that every Colony should, as respects copyright, be in the position of a foreign state towards the mother country and all sister Colonies.
Whether this would be the wish of any Colony we do not know. It seems rather opposed to the tendency, which has happily grown stronger of late years, for every part of the English speaking race to draw closer to every other part. But in any case such a change in the law could not now be made. Both Parliament and public opinion would refuse to extinguish the existing copyright rights of British authors.
As the policy of the earlier part of the Bill is to enlarge the area of protection of literary property as between different independent states, it would be a contradiction to proceed in the latter part to narrow this area and destroy literary property which already exists; and such a course would be in direct opposition to the clan Britain has so often urged on the United States that there should be reciprocal copyright between the two countries. We should have cut the ground from under our feet as regards all further appeals to the honesty and good feeling of the Americans if we suggested to India or the Colonies to do the very thing which we blame America for permitting.
U 21847. 50.-6/86. Wt. 4920. E. & B.
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