the judges, and dissented from by two, Justices Thompson and
Baldwin, who defended the positions and recalled the arguments of
Lord Mansfield and Sir William Blackstone. Justice Baldwin said:
'Protection is the avowed and real purpose of the act of 1790.
There is nothing here admitting the construction that a new right
is created ... It is a forced and unreasonable interpretation to
consider it as restricting or abolishing any pre-existing
right!'"

Previous to the act of Congress of 1790, acts securing copyright to
authors for limited terms had been passed in Connecticut and
Massachusetts in 1783, in Virginia in 1785, in New York in 1786, and
in other States at later dates. The statute of 1790 gave copyright for
fourteen years, with a renewal to the author, if living, of fourteen
years further. In 1831 was passed the act of already quoted, and in
1870 the regulation went into effect that a printed title of the work
copyrighted must be filed with the Librarian of Congress before
publication, and two copies of the complete book be delivered within
ten days after publication.

In 1874 it was provided that the form of the copyright notice in books
should read, "Copyright, 18--, by A. B."

The first step towards a recognition of the rights of foreign authors
was taken in 1836 by Prussia, when she prohibited the sale within her
boundaries of any pirated or counterfeited editions of German works.

In 1837 a Copyright Convention was concluded between the different
members of the German Confederation. In 1838 the British Parliament
passed a law to obtain for authors the benefits of international
copyright, and in 1846 England entered into a convention with Prussia,
in 1851 with France and Hanover, in 1854 with Belgium, and between
1854 and 1860 with Holland, Italy, Switzerland, and Spain. Between
1846 and 1861 similar conventions were entered into by France with
Belgium, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, and Italy, and nearly all the
Continental powers have now copyright arrangements with each other. As
far as I have been able to learn, it is not requisite under these
arrangements to have a book separately entered for copyright in each
country. The single entry in the place of first publication is
sufficient to protect the author, and to leave him free to make,
within a specified time, his own arrangements with foreign publishers.

In the general copyright statutes, Parliament made no expres