his resources. Has he expended or
produced capital? I say he has produced it, and contributed to the wealth
of the world, and that he is as truly entitled to the usufruct of it as
the miner who takes gold or silver out of the earth. For how long? I will
speak of that later on. The copyright of a book is not analogous to the
patent right of an invention, which may become of universal necessity to
the world. Nor should the greater share of this usufruct be absorbed by
the manufacturer and publisher of the book. The publisher has a clear
right to guard himself against risks, as he has the right of refusal to
assume them. But there is an injustice somewhere, when for many a book,
valued and even profitable to somebody, the author does not receive the
price of a laborer's day wages for the time spent on it--to say nothing
of the long years of its gestation.

The relation between author and publisher ought to be neither complicated
nor peculiar. The author may sell his product outright, or he may sell
himself by an agreement similar to that which an employee in a
manufacturing establishment makes with his master to give to the
establishment all his inventions. Either of these methods is fair and
businesslike, though it may not be wise. A method that prevailed in the
early years of this century was both fair and wise. The author agreed
that the publisher should have the exclusive right to publish his book
for a certain term, or to make and sell a certain number of copies. When
those conditions were fulfilled, the control of the property reverted to
the author. The continuance of these relations between the two depended,
as it should depend, upon mutual advantage and mutual good-will. By the
present common method the author makes over the use of his property to
the will of the publisher. It is true that he parts with the use only of
the property and not with the property itself, and the publisher in law
acquires no other title, nor does he acquire any sort of interest in the
future products of the author's brain. But the author loses all control
of his property, and its profit to him may depend upon his continuing to
make over his books to the same publisher. In this continuance he is
liable to the temptation to work for a market, instead of following the
free impulses of his own genius. As to any special book, the publisher is
the sole judge whether to push it or to let it sink into the stagnation
of unadvertised goods.

The