period was passed
about this time.)

The Policy of Congress:--Nineteen or twenty years ago James Russell
Lowell, George Haven Putnam, and the under signed appeared before the
Senate Committee on Patents in the interest of Copyright. Up to that
time, as explained by Senator Platt, of Connecticut, the policy of
Congress had been to limit the life of a copyright by a term of years,
with one definite end in view, and only one--to wit, that after an
author had been permitted to enjoy for a reasonable length of time the
income from literary property created by his hand and brain the property
should then be transferred "to the public" as a free gift. That is still
the policy of Congress to-day.

The Purpose in View:--The purpose in view was clear: to so reduce the
price of the book as to bring it within the reach of all purses, and
spread it among the millions who had not been able to buy it while it
was still under the protection of copyright.

The Purpose Defeated:--This purpose has always been defeated. That is to
say, that while the death of a copyright has sometimes reduced the price
of a book by a half for a while, and in some cases by even more, it
has never reduced it vastly, nor accomplished any reduction that was
permanent and secure.

The Reason:--The reason is simple: Congress has never made a reduction
compulsory. Congress was convinced that the removal of the author's
royalty and the book's consequent (or at least probable) dispersal among
several competing publishers would make the book cheap by force of the
competition. It was an error. It has not turned out so. The reason is, a
publisher cannot find profit in an exceedingly cheap edition if he must
divide the market with competitors.

Proposed Remedy:--The natural remedy would seem to be, amended law
requiring the issue of cheap editions.

Copyright Extension:--I think the remedy could be accomplished in the
following way, without injury to author or publisher, and with extreme
advantage to the public: by an amendment to the existing law providing
as follows--to wit: that at any time between the beginning of a book's
forty-first year and the ending of its forty-second the owner of the
copyright may extend its life thirty years by issuing and placing on
sale an edition of the book at one-tenth the price of the cheapest
edition hitherto issued at any time during the ten immediately preceding
years. This extension to lapse and become null and void if at a